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79 

LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN; 



§icbieli)S, Itarrdite, Cssags, anfo Jjotms, 



BY 

SaX^v MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI, 

AUTHOR OF "WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "AT HOME AND 
ABROAD," "ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA," ETC. 



EDITED BY HER BROTHER, 

ARTHUR B. FULLER. 




BOSTON: 
BROWN, TAGGARD AND CHASE. 

NEW YORK: SHELDON & CO. PHILADELPHIA : J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO. 

I860. 



ts* 









Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

ARTHUR B. FULLER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTTPKD AT T n E 
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FODNDRT. 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



PREFACE. 



Every person, who can be said to really live at all, 
leads two lives during this period of mortal existence. 
The one life is outward; it is passed in reading the 
thoughts of others ; in contemplating the struggles, 
the defeats, the victories, the virtues, the sins, in fine, 
all things which make the history of those who sur- 
round us ; and in gazing upon the structures which 
Art has reared, or paintings which she hath inscribed 
on the canvas ; or looking upon the grand temple of 
the material universe, and beholding scenes painted 
by a hand more skilled, more wondrous, in its creative 
power, than ever can be human hand. The life passed 
in examining what other minds have produced, or liv- 
ing other men's lives by looking at their deeds, or in 
any way discerning what addresses the bodily eye or 
the physical ear, — this is often wise and well ; essential, 
indeed, to any inner life; but it is outward, not self- 
centred, not the product of our own individual natures. 

But the thought of others suggests or develops 

(3) 



thought of our own — the history of other men, as it is 
writing itself imperishably every day upon their souls, 
or already has written itself in letters of living light or 
lines of gloomy blackness — gives rise to internal sym- 
pathy or abhorrence on the part of us who look on and 
read what is thus writing and written. Our own spirits 
are stirred within us : our passions, which have been 
sleeping lions, our affections and aspirations, before 
angels with folded wings, — these are awakened by what 
others are doing, and then we struggle with the bad or 
yield to it ; we obey or disobey the good, and our in- 
ternal moral life begins ; the outward universe or the 
Great Spirit in our hearts speaks to our souls, leading 
first to inward dissatisfaction, then to aspiration for 
and attainment of holiness, and now the inner spiritual 
life, which shall transfigure all outward life, and throw 
its own light and give its own hue to all the outward 
universe, has begun. These two lives are parallel 
streams ; often they mingle their waters, and each im- 
parts its own hue and characteristic to the other. 
Sometimes the outer life is the main stream ; men live 
only in other men's thoughts and deeds — look only 
upon the material universe, and retire but seldom 
within: the inner life is but a silver thread — a little 
rill, scarce discoverable save by the eye of God. Again, 
with many the outer life is but little; the passing 
scene, the din of the battle which humanity is ever 
waging, the one scarce is gazed upon or the other heard 



PREFACE. - 5 

by those who retire much from the outward world, 
and live almost exclusively upon their own thoughts, 
and in an ideal realm of fancy, or a real one of in- 
ternal conflict, which is hidden from the outer vision. 
Better is it when the stream of outward and inner life 
are both full and broad — when the glories of the 
material universe attract the gaze, the realm of litera- 
ture and learning invite the willing feet to wander 
in paths where poetry has planted many flowers, phi- 
losophy many a sturdy oak of truth, which centuries 
cannot overthrow — and when, on the other hand, 
men do not forget to retire often within, and find their 
own minds kingdoms, where many a noble thought 
spontaneously grows ; their own souls heavens, where, 
the busy world withdrawn, they commune much with 
their own aspirations, fight many a noble battle with 
whatever hinders their spiritual peace, and where they 
commune yet more with that Comforter, the Divine 
Spirit, and Christ, that Friend and Helper of all who 
are seeking to make the life of thought and desire, as 
well as outward word and deed, high and holy. 

It is not a brother's part to pass critical judgment upon 
a sister's literary attainments, or mental and spiritual 
gifts, nor is it needful in reference to Madame Ossoli. 
The world never has questioned her great learning or 
rich and varied culture ; these have been ^uniformly 
acknowledged. As a keen and sagacious critic of 
literature, as an admirer of whatever was noble, an 
1* 



6 PREFACE. 

abhorrer of all low and mean, this she was early, and 
is, so far as we know, without any question regarded. 
That her judgments have always been acquiesced in is 
far from true ; but the public has ever believed them 
alike sincere and fearless. The life without, — that of 
culture and intelligent, careful observation, — all know 
that stream to have been full to overflowing. 

More and more, too, every year, the public are be- 
ginning to recognize and appreciate the richness and 
the beauty of her inner life. The very keenness of her 
critical acumen, — the very boldness of her rebuke of all 
she deemed petty and base — the very truthfulness of 
her conformity to her own standard — her very abhor- 
rence of all cant and mere conformity, long prevented, 
and even yet somewhat hinder, many from adequately 
recognizing the loving spirit, the sympathetic nature, 
the Christian faith, and spiritual devoutness which made 
her domestic and social life, her action amid her own 
kindred and nation, and in Rome, for those not allied to 
her by birth and lineage, at once kindly, noble, and full 
of holy self-sacrifice. Yet continually the world is 
learning these things : the history of her life, as her 
memoirs reveal it, the testimony of so many witnesses 
here and in other lands, a more careful study and a 
wider reading of her works, are leading, perhaps 
rapidly cnqngh, to a true appreciation of the spiritual 
beauty of her soul, and men see that the waters of 



PREFACE. 7 

her inner life form a stream at once clear and pure, 
deep and broad. 

In presenting to the public the last volume of Mar- 
garet Fuller's works, the Editor is encouraged to hope 
for them a candid, cordial reception. It has been a 
work of love on his part, for which he has ever felt 
inadequate, and from it for a time shrunk. But each 
volume has had a wider and more cordial welcome than 
its predecessor, and works received by the great public 
almost with coldness when first published, have, when 
republished, had a large and cheering circulation, and, 
what is far better, a kindly appreciation not only by the 
few, but even by the many. This is evidence enough 
that the progress of time has brought the public and my 
sister into closer sympathy and agreement, and a better 
understanding on its part of her true views and char- 
acter. 

The present volume is less than any of its predeces- 
sors a republication. Only one of its articles has ever 
appeared before in book form. As a book, it is, then, 
essentially new, though some of its reviews and essays 
have appeared in the columns of the Tribune and Dial. 
A large portion of it has never appeared at all in print, 
especially its poetical portions. The work of collecting 
these essays, reviews, and poems has been a difficult 
one, much more than attended the preparation of 
the previous volumes. Unable, of course, to consult 



their author as to any of them, the revision I have 
given is doubtless very imperfect, and requires large 
allowance. It is even possible that among the poems 
one or more written by friends and sent her, or copied 
from some other author, may have crept in unawares ; 
but this all possible pains have been taken to prevent. 
Such as it is, the volume is now before the public ; it 
truly reveals her inner and outer life, and is doubtless 
the last of the volumes containing the writings of 
Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I.— REVIEWS. 

Page. 

Menzel's "View of Gcethe 13 

Gcethe 23 

Thomas Hood 61 

Letters from a Landscape Painter 69 

Beethoven 71 

Brown's Novels 83 

Edgar A. Poe 87 

Alfieri and Cellini 93 

Italy. — Cart's Dante 102 

American Facts 108 

Napoleon and his Marshals 110 

Physical Education 116 

Frederick. Douglass 121 

Philip Van Arteyelde 127 

United States Exploring Expedition 141 

Story Books for the Hot Weather 143 

Shelley's Poems 149 

Festus 153 

French Novelists of the Day 158 

The New Science, or the Philosophy of Mesmerism or 

Animal Magnetism 169 

(9) 



10 CONTENTS. 

Deutsche Schxellpost 174 

Oliver Cromwell 179 

Emerson's Essays 191 

Capital Punishment 199 



PART IL-MISCELLANEOUS. 

First of January 207 

New Year's Day 219 

St. Valentine's Day 226 

Fourth of July 232 

First of August 236 

Thanksgiving 243 

Christmas 250 

Mariana 258 

Sunday Meditations on Various Texts. — First 277 

" " " Second 280 

Appeal for an Asylum for Discharged Female Convicts. . 283 

The Rich Man. — An Ideal Sketch 287 

The Poor Man. — An Ideal Sketch 297 

The Celestial Empire 304 

Klopstock and Meta 308 

What fits a Man to be a Voter. — A Fable 314 

Discoveries 319 

Politeness too great a Luxury to be given to the Poor. . 322 

Cassius M. Clay 326 

The Magnolia of Lake Pontchartrain 330 

Consecration of Grace Church 337 

Late Aspirations 314 

Fragmentary Thoughts, from Margaret Fuller's Journal. 348 

Farewell to New York 354 



CONTENTS. 11 



PART III. -POEMS. 

Freedom and Truth 357 

Description" of a Portion of the Journey to Trenton 

Falls 357 

Journey to Trenton Falls 361 

Sub Rosa Crux 365 

The Dahlia, the Rose, and the Heliotrope 367 

To my Friends, (translation.) 368 

Stanzas written at the Age of Seventeen 370 

Flaxman 371 

Thoughts on Sunday Morning, when prevented by a Snow- 
storm FROM GOING TO CHURCH 371 

To a Golden Heart worn round the Neck 374 

Lines accompanying a Bouquet of wild Columbine. . . . 375 

Dissatisfaction, (translation.) 377 

My Seal-ring 378 

The Consolers, (translation.) 379 

Absence of Love • 380 

Meditations ._ 381 

Richter 383 

The Thankful and the Thankless 384 

Prophecy and Fulfilment 385 

Verses given to "W. C, with a Blank Book 3S5 

Eagles and Doves, (translation.) 387 

To a Friend, with Heartsease 3S8 

Aspiration 3S9 

The One in All 390 

A Greeting 393 

Lines to Edith, on her Birthday 394 



12 CONTENTS. 

Lines written* in her Brother R. F. F's Journal 395 

On a Picture representing the Descent from the Cross. . 396 

The Captured Wild Horse 397 

Epilogue to the Tragedy of Essex, (translation.) . . . 400 

Hymn written for a Sunday School 404 

Desertion, (translation.) 405 

Song written for a May-day Festival 406 

Caradori singing 409 

Lines in Answer to Stanzas containing several Passages 

of distinguished beauty 409 

Influence of the Outward 410 

To Miss R. B 411 

SlSTRUM 413 

Imperfect Thoughts 414 

Sadness 414 

Lines written in an Album 416 

To S. C 417 

Lines written in Boston on a beautiful Autumnal Day. . 420 

To E. C, with Herbert's Poems 422 



$Kfe toitjmf ani Uife foittjk 



PART I. 

REVIEWS 



MENZEL'S VIEW OF GCETHE. 

Menzel's view of Goethe is that of a Philistine, in the 
least opprobrious sense of the term. It is one which has long 
been applied in Germany to petty cavillers and incompetent 
critics. I do not wish to convey a sense so disrespectful in 
speaking of Menzel. He has a vigorous and brilliant mind, 
and a wide, though imperfect, culture. He is a man of talent, 
but talent cannot comprehend genius. He judges of Goethe 
as a Philistine, inasmuch as he does not enter into Canaan, 
and read the prophet by the light of his own law, but looks at 
him from without, and tries him by a rule beneath which he 
never lived. That there was something Menzel saw ; what 
that something was not he saw, but what it was he could not 
see ; none could see ; it was something to be felt and known at 
the time of its apparition, but the clear sight of it was re- 
served to a day far enough removed from its sphere to get a 
commanding point of view. Has that day come ? A little 
while ago it seemed so; certain features of Goethe's person- 
2 (13) 



14 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

ality, certain results of his tendency, had become so manifest. 
But as the plants he planted mature, they shed a new seed 
for a yet more noble growth. A wider experience, a deeper 
insight, make rejected words come true, and bring a more re- 
fined perception of meaning already discerned. Like all his 
elder brothers of tlie elect band, the forlorn hope of humanity, 
he obliges us to live and grow, that we may walk by his side ; 
vainly we strive to leave him behind in some niche of the 
hall of our ancestors ; a few steps onward and we find him 
again, of yet serener eye and more towering mien than on 
his other pedestal. Former measurements of his size have, 
like the girdle bound by the nymphs round the infant Apollo, 
only served to make him outgrow the unworthy compass. 
The still rising sun, with its broader light, shows us it is not 
yet noon. In him is soon perceived a prophet of our own 
age, as well as a representative of his own ; and we doubt 
whether the revolutions of the century be not required to in- 
terpret the quiet depths of his Saga. 

Sure it is that none has yet found Gcethe's place, as sure 
that none can claim to be his peer, who has not some time, 
ay, and for a long time, been his pupil ! 

Yet much truth has been spoken of him in detail, some by 
Menzel, but in so superficial a spirit, and with so narrow a 
view of its bearings, as to have all the effect of falsehood. 
Such denials of the crown can only fix it more firmly on the 
head of the " Old Heathen." To such the best answer may be 
given in the words of Bettina Brentan : " The others criticise 
thy works; I only know that they lead us on and on till we 
live in them." And thus will all criticism end in making 
more men and women read these works, and u on and on," 
till they forget whether the author be a patriot or a moralist, 
in the deep humanity of the thought, the breathing nature of 
the scene. While words they have accepted with immediate 
approval fade from memory, these oft-denied words of keen, 
cold truth return with ever new force and significance. 



menzel's view op gcethe. 15 

Men should be true, wise, beautiful, pure, and aspiring. 
This man was true and wise, capable of all things. Because 
he did not in one short life complete his circle, can we afford 
to lose him out of sight ? Can we, in a world where so few 
men have in any degree redeemed their inheritance, neglect a 
nature so rich and so manifestly progressive ? 

Historically considered, Gcethe needs no apology. His so- 
called faults fitted him all the better for the part he had to 
play. In cool possession of his wide-ranging genius, he taught 
the imagination of Germany, that the highest flight should be 
associated with the steady sweep and undazzled eye of the 
eagle. Was he too much the connoisseur, did he attach too 
great an importance to the cultivation of taste, where just 
then German literature so much needed to be refined, polished, 
and harmonized ? Was he too sceptical, too much an experi- 
mentalist, — how else could he have formed himself to be the 
keenest, and, at the same time, most nearly universal of 
observers, teaching theologians, philosophers, and patriots that 
nature comprehends them all, commands them all, and that no 
one development of life must exclude the rest ? Do you talk, 
in the easy cant of the day, of German obscurity, extrava- 
gance, pedantry, and bad taste, — and will you blame this 
man, whose Greek, English, Italian, German mind steered so 
clear of these rocks and shoals, clearing, adjusting, and calm- 
ing on each side, wherever he turned his prow ? Was he not 
just enough of an idealist, just enough of a realist, for his 
peculiar task ? If you want a moral enthusiast, is not there 
Schiller? If piety, of purest, mystic sweetness, who but 
Novalis ? Exuberant sentiment, that treasures each withered 
leaf in a tender breast, look to your Eichter. Would you 
have men to find plausible meaning for the deepest enigma, 
or to hang up each map of literature, well painted and dotted 
on its proper roller, — there are the Schlegels. Men of ideas 
were numerous as migratory crows in autumn, and Jacobi 
wrote the heart into philosophy, as well as he could. Who 



16 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

could fill Goethe's place to Germany, and to the world, of 
which she is now the teacher? His much-reviled aristocratic 
turn was at that time a reconciling element. It is plain why 
he was 'what he was, for his country and his age. 

Whoever looks into the history of his youth, will be struck 
by a peculiar force with which all things worked together to 
prepare him for his office of artist-critic to the then chaotic, 
world of thought in his country. What an unusually varied 
scene of childhood and of youth ! What endless change and 
contrast of circumstances and influences ! Father and mother, 
life and literature, world and nature, — playing into one 
another's hands, always by antagonism ! Never was a child 
so carefully guarded by fate against prejudice, against un- 
due bias, against any engrossing sentiment. Nature having 
given him power of poetical sympathy to know every situa- 
tion, would not permit him to make himself at home in any. 
And how early what was most peculiar in his character 
manifested itself, may be seen in these anecdotes related by 
his mother to Bettina. 

Of Goethe's childhood. — " He was not willing to play with 
other little children, unless they were very fair. In a circle 
he began suddenly to weep, screaming, ' Take away the black, 
ugly child ; I cannot bear to have it here.' He could not be 
pacified; they were obliged to take him home, and there the 
mother could hardly console him for the child's ugliness. He 
was then only three years old." 

"His mother was surprised, that when his brother Jacob 
died, who had been his playmate, he shed no tear, but rather 
seemed annoyed by the lamentations of those around him. 
But afterwards, when his mother asked whether he had not 
loved his brother, he ran into his room and brought from 
under his bed a bundle of papers, all written over, and said 
he had done all this for Jacob." 

Even so in later years, had he been asked if he had not 



menzel's view of gcethe. 17 

lvyved his country and his fellow-men, he would not have an- 
swered by tears and vows, but pointed to his works. 

In the first anecdote is observable that love of symmetry in 
external relations which, in manhood, made him give "up the 
woman he loved, because she would not have been in place 
among the old-fashioned furniture of his father's house ; and 
dictated the course which, at the crisis of his life, led him to 
choose an outward peace rather than an inward joy. In the 
second, he displays, at the earliest age, a sense of his vocation 
as a recorder, the same which drew him afterwards to write 
his life into verse, rather than clothe it in action. His indi- 
rectness, his aversion to the frankness of heroic meetings, is 
repulsive and suspicious to generous and flowing natures ; yet 
many of the more delicate products of the mind seem to need 
these sheaths, lest bird and insect rifle them in the bud. 

And if this subtlety, isolation, and distance be the dictate 
of nature, we submit, even as we are not vexed that the wild 
bee should hide its honey in some old moss-grown tree, rather 
than in the glass hives of our gardens. We believe it will 
repay the pains we take in seeking for it, by some peculiar 
flavor from unknown flowers. Was Goethe the wild bee? 
We see that even in his boyhood he showed himself a very 
Egyptian, in his love for disguises ; forever expressing his 
thought in roundabout ways, which seem idle mummery to a 
mind of Spartan or Roman mould. Had he some simple thing 
to tell his friend, he read it from the newspaper, or wrote it 
into a parable. Did he make a visit, he put on the hat or 
wig of some other man, and made his bow as Schmidt or 
Schlosser, that they might stare, when he spoke as Goethe. 
He gives as the highest instance of passionate grief, that he 
gave up for one day watching the tedious ceremonies of the 
imperial coronation. In daily life many of these carefully 
recorded passages have an air of platitude, at which no wonder 
the Edinburgh Review laughed. Yet, on examination, they 
are full of meaning. And when we see the same propensity 
9 * 



18 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN*. 

writing itself into Ganymede, Mahomet's song, the Bayadere, 
and Faust, telling all Go3the's religion in MignoD and Maka- 
na, all his wisdom in the Western-Eastern Divan, we respect 
it, accept, all but love it. 

This theme is for a volume, and I must quit it now. A 
brief summary of what Goethe was suffices to vindicate his 
existence, as an agent in history and a part of nature, but will 
not meet the objections of those who measure him, as they 
have a right to do, by the standard of ideal manhood. 

Most men, in judging another man, ask, Did he live up to 
our standard ? 

But to me it seems desirable to ask rather, Did he live up 
to his own ? 

So possible is it that our consciences may be more enlight- 
ened than that of the Gentile under consideration. And if 
we can find out how much was given him, we are told, in a 
pure evangelium, to judge thereby how much shall be 
required. 

Now, Goethe has given us both his own standard and the 
way to apply it. " To appreciate any man, learn first what 
object he proposed to himself; next, what degree of earnest- 
ness he showed with regard to attaining that object." 

And this is part of his hymn for man made in the divine 
image, "The Godlike." 

" Hail to the Unknown, the 
Higher Being 
Felt within us I 

" Unfeeling 
As nature, 
Still shineth tin.- BUD 
Over good and evil ; 
And on the sinner, 
Smile as on the best, 






menzel's view of gcethe. 19 

Moon and stars. 
Fate too, &c. 

" There can none but man 
Perform the Impossible. 
He understandeth, 
Chooseth, and judgeth ; 
He can impart to the 
Moment duration. 

" He alone may 
The good reward, 
The guilty punish, 
Mend and deliver ; 
All the wayward, anomalous 
Bind in the useful. 

" And the Immortals, 
Them we reverence 
As if they were men, and . 
Did, on a grand scale, 
What the best man in little 
Does, or fain would do. 

" Let noble man 
Be helpful and good ; 
Ever creating 
The Right and the Useful ; 
Type of those loftier 

Beings of whom the heart whispers." 

This standard is high enough. It is what every man should 
express in action, the poet in music ! 

And this office of a judge, who is of purer eyes than to be- 
hold iniquity, and of a sacred oracle, to whom other men may 



20 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

go to ask when they should choose a friend, when face a foe, 
this great genius does not adequately fulfil. Too oft<n lias 
the priest left the shrine to go and gather simple- by the aid 
of spells whose might no pure power needs. Glimpses are 
found in his works of the highest spirituality, but it is blue sky 
seen through chinks in a roof which should never have been 
builded. He has used life to excess. He is too rich for his 
nobleness, too judicious for his inspiration, too humanly wise 
for his divine mission. He might have been a priest ; he is 
only a sage. 

An Epicurean sage, say the multitude. This seems to 
me unjust. He is also called a debauchee. There may 
be reason for such terms, but it is partial, and received, U 
they will be, by the unthinking, they are as false as Men- 
zel's abuse, in the impression they convey. Did Gcethe value 
the present too much? It was not for the Epicurean aim of 
pleasure, but for use. He, in this, was but an instance of 
reaction, in an age of painful doubt and restless Btriving a- to 
the future. Was his private life stained by profligacy? 
That far largest portion of his life, which is ours, and which 
is expressed in his works, is an unbroken series of efforts to 
develop the higher elements of our being. I cannot speak t<» 
private gossip on this subject, nor even to well-authenticated 
versions of his private life. Here are sixty volumes, by him- 
self and others, which contain sufficient evidence of a life of 
severe labor, steadfast forbearance, and an intellectual growth 
almost unparalleled. That he has failed of the highest fulfil- 
ment of his high vocation is certain, but he was neither Epi- 
curean nor sensualist, if we consider his life as a whole. 

Yet he had failed to reach his highest development : and 
how was it that he was so content with this incompleteness, 
nay, the serenest of men? His serenity alone, in Bach a time 
of scepticism and sorrowful seeking, gives him a claim to all 
our study. See how he rides at anchor, lordly, rich in freight, 
every white sail ready to be unfurled at a moment's warning! 



menzel's hew of gcethe. 21 

And it must be a very slight survey which can confound this 
calm self-trust with selfish indifference of temperament. In- 
deed, he, in various ways, lets us see how little he was helped 
in this respect by temperament. But we need not his decla- 
ration, — the case speaks for itself. Of all that perpetual ac- 
complishment, that unwearied construed veness, the basis must 
be sunk deeper than in temperament. He never halts, never 
repines, never is puzzled, like other men ; that tranquillity, 
full of life, that ceaseless but graceful motion, " without haste, 
without rest," for which we all are striving, he has attained. 
And is not his love of the noblest kind ? Reverence the 
highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's per- 
formance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars 
too distant, pick up that pebble that lies at thy foot, and from 
it learn the all. Go out like Saul, the son of Kish, look ear- 
nestly after the meanest of thy father's goods, and a kingdom 
shall be brought thee. The least act of pure self-renunciation 
hallows, for the moment, all within its sphere. The philoso- 
pher may mislead, the devil tempt, yet innocence, though 
wounded and bleeding as it goes, must reach at last the holy 
city. The power of sustaining himself and guiding others 
rewards man sufficiently for the longest apprenticeship. Is 
not this lore the noblest ? 

Yes, yes, but still I doubt. 'Tis true, he says all this in a 
thousand beautiful forms, but he does not warm, he does not 
inspire me. In his certainty is no bliss, in his hope no love, 
in his faith no glow. How is this ? 

A friend, of a delicate penetration, observed, " His atmos- 
phere was so calm, so full of light, that I hoped he would teach 
me his secret of cheerfulness. But I found, after long search, 
that he had no better way, if he wished to check emotion or 
clear thought, than to go to work. As his mother tells us, 
'My son, if he had a grief, made it into a poem, and so got 
rid of it.' This mode is founded in truth, but does not 



22 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

involve the whole truth. I want the method which is indicated 
by the phrase, ' Perseverance of the saints.' " 

This touched the very point. Gcetli*- attained only the 
perseverance of a man. He was true, for he knew that noth- 
ing can be false to him who is true, and that to genius nature 
has pledged her protection. Had he but seen a little farther, 
he would have given this covenant a higher expression, and 
been more deeply true to a diviner nature. 

In another article on Gcethe, I shall give some account of 
that period, when a too determined action of the intellect 
limited and blinded him for the rest of his life ; I mean only 
in comparison with what he should have been. Had it been 
otherwise, what would he not have attained, who, even thus 
self-enchained, rose to Ulyssean stature. Connected with this 
is the fact, of which he spoke with such sarcastic solemnity to 
Eckermann — " My works will never be popular." 

I wish, also, to consider the Faust, Elective Affinities, Ap- 
prenticeship and Pilgrimages of Wilhelm Meister, and Iphi- 
genia, as affording indications of the progress of his genius 
here, of its wants and prospects in future spheres of activity. 
For the present I bid him farewell, as his friends always have 
done, in hope and trust of a better meeting. 



GCETHE. 23 



GOETHE. 

"Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse." 

" "Wer Grosses will muss sich zusammen rafFen ; 
In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister, 
Und der Gesetz nur Kann uns Freikeit geben." * 

The first of these mottoes is that prefixed by Goethe to 
the last books of " Dichtung und Wahrheit." These books 
record the hour of turning tide in his life, the time wheu he 
was called on for a choice at the " Parting of the Ways." 
From these months, which gave the sun of his youth, the 
crisis of his manhood, date the birth of Egmont, and of Faust 
too, though the latter was not published so early. They saw 
the rise and decline of his love for Lili, apparently the truest 
love he ever knew. That he was not himself dissatisfied 
with the results to which the decisions of this era led him, we 
may infer from his choice of a motto, and from the calm 
beauty with which he has invested the record. 

The Parting of the Ways ! The way he took led to court- 
favor, wealth, celebrity, and an independence of celebrity. It 
led to large performance, and a wonderful economical manage- 
ment of intellect. It led Faust, the Seeker, from the heights 
of his own mind to the trodden ways of the world. There, 
indeed, he did not lose sight of the mountains, but he never 
breathed their keen air again. 



* " He who would do great things must quickly draw together his forces. 
The master can only show himself such through limitation, and the law 
alone can give us freedom." 



24 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

After this period we find in him rather a wide and deep 
"Wisdom, than the inspiration of Genius. His faith, that all 
must issue well, wants the sweetness of piety, and the God he 
manifests to us is one of law or necessity, rather than of intel- 
ligent love. As this God makes because he must, so Goethe, 
his instrument, observes and re-creates because he must) 
observing with minutest fidelity the outward exposition of 
Nature ; never blinded by a sham, or detained by a fear, he 
yet makes us feel that he wants insight to her sacred secret. 
The calmest of writers does not give us repose, because it is 
too difficult to find his centre. Those flame-like natures, 
which he undervalues, give us more peace and hope, through 
their restless aspirations, than he with his hearth-enclosed fires 
of steady fulfilment. For, true as it is, that God is every 
where, we must not only see him, but see him acknowledged. 
Through the consciousness of man, " shall not Nature inter- 
pret God?" We wander in diversity, and with each new 
turning of the path, long anew to be referred to the One. 

Of Gosthe, as of other natures, where the intellect is too 
much developed in proportion to the moral nature, it is diffi- 
cult to speak without seeming narrow, blind, and impertinent 
For such men see all that others live, and, if you feel a want 
of a faculty in them, it is hard to say they have it not, lest, 
next moment, they puzzle you by giving some indication of it. 
Yet they are not, nay, know not; they only discern. The 
difference is that between sight and life, prescience and being, 
wisdom and love. Thus with Goethe. Naturally of a deep 
mind and shallow heart, he felt the sway of the affections 
enough to appreciate their workings in other men, but never 
enough to receive their inmost regenerating influence. 

How this might have been had he ever once abandoned 
himself entirely to a sentiment, it is impossible to say. lint 
the education of his youth seconded, rather than balanced, his 
natural tendency. His father was a gentlemanly martinet; 
dull, sour, well-informed, and of great ambition as to externals. 



GCETHE. 25 

His influence on the son was wholly artificial. He was always 
turning his powerful mind from side to side in search of in- 
formation, for the attainment of what are called accomplish- 
ments. The mother was a delightful person in her way ; 
open, genial, playful, full of lively talent, but without earnest- 
ness of soul. She was one of those charming, but not noble 
persons, who take the day and the man as they find them, 
seeing the best that is there already, but never making the 
better grow in its stead. His sister, though of graver kind, 
was social and intellectual, not religious or tender. The mor- 
tif} r ing repulse of his early love checked the few pale buds of 
faith and tenderness that his heart put forth. His friends 
were friends of the intellect merely ; altogether, he seemed 
led by destiny to the place he was to fill. 

Pardon him, World, that he was too worldly. Do not 
wonder, Heart, that he was so heartless. Believe, Soul, that 
one so true, as far as he went, must yet be initiated into the 
deeper mysteries of Soul. Perhaps even now he sees that 
we must accept limitations only to transcend them ; work in 
processes only to detect the organizing power which super- 
sedes them; and that Sphinxes of fifty-five volumes might 
well be cast into the abyss before the single word that solves 
them all. 

Now, when I think of Goethe, I seem to see his soul, all 
the variegated plumes of knowledge, artistic form " und so 
weiter," burnt from it by the fires of divine love, wingless, 
motionless, unable to hide from itself in any subterfuge of 
labor, saying again and again, the simple words which he 
would never distinctly say on earth — God beyond Nature — 
Faith beyond Sight — the Seeker nobler than the Meister. 

For this mastery that Goethe prizes seems to consist rather 

in the skilful use of means than in the clear manifestation of 

ends. His Master, indeed, makes acknowledgment of a 

divine order, but the temporal uses are always uppermost in 

3 



26 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

the mind of the reader. But of this, more at large in refer- 
ence to his works. 

Apart from this want felt in his works, there i- a littleness 
in his aspect as a character. Why waste hia time in Weimar 
court entertainments? His duties as minister were not un- 
worthy of him, though it would have been, perhaps, finer, if 
he had not spent so large a portion of that prime of intellectual 
life, from five and twenty to forty, upon them. ^ 

But granted that the exercise these gave hi- faculties, the 
various lore they brought, and the good they did to the com- 
munity, made them worth his doing, — why that perpetual 
dangling after the royal family? Why all that verse-making 
for the albums of serene highnesses, and those pretty poetical 
entertainments for the young princesses, and that cold setting 
himself apart from his true peers, the real sovereigns of 
Weimar — Herder, Wieland, and the others? The excuse 
must be found in circumstances of his time and temperament, 
which made the character of man of the world and man of 
affairs more attractive to him than the children of nature can 
conceive it to be in the eyes of one who is capable of being a 
consecrated bard. 

The man of genius feels that literature has become too 
much a craft by itself. No man should live by or i'w hi- pen. 
Writing is worthless except as the record of life ; ami no 
great man ever Avas satisfied thus to express all his being. 
His book should be only an indication of himself. The obe- 
lisk should point to a scene of conquest. In the present state 
of division of labor, the literary man finds himself condemned 
to be nothing else. Does he write a good book? it is Dot 
received as evidence of his ability to live and act, but rather 
the reverse. Men do not offer him the care of embassh -. as 
an earlier age did to Petrarea ; they would be surprised if he 
left his study to go forth to battle like Cervantes. We have 
the swordsman, and statesman, and penman, but it is not consid- 
ered that the same mind which can rule the destiny of a poem, 



GGETHE. 27 

may as well that of an army or an empire.* Yet surely it 
should be so. The scientific man may need seclusion from 
the common affairs of life, for he has his materials before him; 
but the man of letters must seek them in life, and he who 
cannot act will but imperfectly appreciate action. 

The literary man is impatient at being set apart. He feels 
that monks and troubadours, though in a similar position, were 
brought into more healthy connection with man and nature, 
than he who is supposed to look at them merely to write them 
down. So he rebels ; and Sir Walter Scott is prouder of be- 
ing a good sheriff and farmer, than of his reputation as the 
Great Unknown. Byron piques himself on his skill in shoot- 
ing and swimming. Sir II. Davy and Schlegel would be 
admired as dandies, and Goethe, who had received an order 
from a publisher " for a dozen more dramas in the same style 
as Gcetz von Berlichingen," and though (in sadder sooth) he 
had already Faust in his head asking to be written out, thought 
it no degradation to become premier in the little Duchy of 
Weimar. 

" Straws show which way the wind blows," and a comment 
may be drawn from the popular novels, where the literary 
man is obliged to wash off the ink in a violet bath, attest his 
courage in the duel, and hide his idealism beneath the vulgar 
nonchalance and coxcombry of the man of fashion. 

If this tendency of his time had some influence in making 
Goethe find pleasure in tangible power and decided relations 
with society, there were other causes which worked deeper. 
The growth of genius in its relations to men around must 
always be attended with daily pain. The enchanted eye 
turns from the far-off star it has detected to the short-sighted 
bystander, and the seer is mocked for. pretending to see what 
others cannot. The large and generalizing mind infers the 
whole from a single circumstance, and is reproved by all 

* Except in "La belle France." 



28 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

around for its presumptuous judgment. Its Ithuriel temper 
pierces shams, creeds, covenants, and chases the phantoms 
which others embrace, till the lovers of the false Floriniels 
hurl the true knight to the ground. Little men are indignant 
that Hercules, yet an infant, declares he has strangled the 
serpent ; they demand a proof; they send him out into scenes 
of labor to bring thence the voucher that his father is a god. 
What the ancients meant to express by Apollo's continual 
disappointment in his loves, is felt daily in the youth of 
genius. The sympathy he seeks flies his touch, the ob- 
jects of his affection sneer at his sublime credulity, his self- 
reliance is arrogance, his far sight infatuation, and his ready 
detection of fallacy fickleness and inconsistency. Such is the 
youth of genius, before the soul has given that sign of itself 
which an unbelieving generation cannot controvert. Even 
then he is little benefited by the transformation of the mock- 
ers into worshippers. For the soul seeks not adorers, but 
peers ; not blind worship, but intelligent sympathy. The best 
consolation even then is that which Goethe puts into the mouth 
of Tasso : " To me gave a God to tell what I suffer." In 
" Tasso " Goethe has described the position of the poetical mind 
in its prose relations with equal depth and fulness. We see 
what he felt must be the result of entire abandonment to the 
highest nature. We see why he valued himself on being 
able to understand the Alphonsos, and meet as an equal the 
Antonios of every-day life. 

But, you say, there is no likeness between G<cthe and 
Tasso. Never believe it; such pictures are not painted from 
observation merely. That deep coloring which iills them 
with light and life is given by dipping the brush in one's own 
life-blood. Gnethe had not from nature that character 
self-reliance and self-control in which he so long appeared to 
the world. It was wholly acquired, and so highly valued be- 
cause he was conscious of the opposite tendency. He was by 
nature as impetuous, though not as tender, as Tasso, and the 



GCETHE. 29 

disadvantage at which this constantly placed him was keenly 
felt by a mind made to appreciate the subtlest harmonies in 
all relations. Therefore was it that when he at last cast 
anchor, he was so reluctant again to trust himself to wave 
and breeze. 

I have before spoken of the antagonistic influences under 
which he was educated. He was driven from the severity of 
study into the world, and then again drawn back, many times 
in the course of his crowded youth. Both the world and the 
study he used with unceasing ardor, but not with the sweet- 
ness of a peaceful hope. Most of the traits which are con- 
sidered to mark his character at a later period were wanting 
to him in youth. He was very social, and continually per- 
turbed by his social sympathies. He was deficient both in 
outward self-possession and mental self-trust. " I was always," 
he says, " either too volatile or too infatuated, so that those 
who looked kindly on me did by no means always honor me 
with their esteem." He wrote much and with great freedom. 
The pen came naturally to his hand, but he had no confi- 
dence in the merit of what he wrote, and much inferior per- 
sons to Merck and Herder might have induced him to throw 
aside as worthless what it had given him sincere pleasure to 
compose. It was hard for him to isolate himself, to console 
himself, and, though his mind was always busy with important 
thoughts, they did not free him from the pressure of other 
minds. His youth was as sympathetic and impetuous as any 
on record. 

The effect of all this outward pressure on the poet is 
recorded in Werther — a production that he afterwards under- 
valued, and to which he even felt positive aversion. It was 
natural that this should be. In the calm air of the cultivated 
plain he attained, the remembrance of the miasma of senti- 
mentality was odious to him. Yet sentimentality is but - 
ment diseased, which to be cured must be patiently observed 
by the wise physician ; so are the morbid desire and despair 
3* 



30 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

of Werther, the sickness of a soul aspiring to a purer, freer 
state, but mistaking the way. 

The best or the worst occasion in man's life is precisely that 
misused in Werther, when he longs for more love more free- 
dom, and a larger development of genius than the limitations 
of this terrene sphere permit. Sad is it indeed if, persisting to 
grasp too much at once, he lose all, as Werther did. lie must 
accept limitation, must consent to do his work in time, must 
let his affections be baffled by the barriers of convention. 
Tantalus-like, he makes this world a Tartarus, or, like Hercu- 
les, rises in fires to heaven, according as he knows how to 
interpret his lot. But he must only use, not adopt it. The 
boundaries of the man must never be confounded with the 
destiny of the soul. If he does not decline his destiny, as 
Werther did, it is his honor to have felt its unfitness for his 
eternal scope. He was born for wings ; he is held to walk in 
leading-strings ; nothing lower than faith must make him re- 
signed, and only in hope should he find content — a hope not 
of some slight improvement in his own condition or that of 
other men, but a hope justified by the divine justice, which is 
bound in due time to satisfy every want of his nature. 

Schiller's great command is, " Keep true to the dream of thy 
youth." The great problem is how to make the dream real, 
through the exercise of the waking will. 

This was not exactly the problem Goethe tried to solve. To 
do somewhat, became too important, as is indicated both by 
the second motto to this essay, and by his maxim, " It is not 
the knowledge of what might be, but what is, that forms us." 

Werther, like his early essays now republished from the 
Frankfort Journal, is characterized by a fervid eloquence of 
Italian glow, which betrays a part of his character almost lost 
sight of in the quiet transparency of his later productions, 
and may give us some idea of the mental conflicts through 
which he passed to manhood. 

The acting out the mystery into life, the calmness of sur- 



GOETHE. 31 

vey, and the passion ateness of feeling, above all the ironical 
baffling at the end, and want of point to a tale got up with 
such an eye to effect as he goes along, mark well the man that 
was to be. Even so did he demand in Werther ; even so res- 
olutely open the door in the first part of Faust ; even so seem 
to play with himself and his contemporaries in the second 
part of Faust and Wilhelm Meister. 

Yet was he deeply earnest in his play, not for men, but for 
himself. To himself as a part of nature it was important to 
grow, to lift his head to the light. In nature he had all con- 
fidence ; for man, as a part of nature, infinite hope; but in 
him as an individual will, seemingly, not much trust at the 
earliest age. 

The history of his intimacies marks his course ; they were en- 
tered into with passionate eagerness, but always ended in an ob- 
servation of the intellect, and he left them on his road, as the 
snake leaves his skin. The first man he met of sufficient 
force to command a large share of his attention was Herder, 
and the benefit of this intercourse was critical, not genial. 
Of the good Lavater he soon perceived the weakness. 
Merck, again, commanded his respect ; but the force of Merck 
also was cold. 

But in the Grand Duke of "Weimar he seems to have met 
a character strong enough to exercise a decisive influence 
upon his own. Goethe was not so politic and worldly that a 
little man could ever have become his Maecenas. In the 
Duchess Amelia and her son he found that practical sagacity, 
large knowledge of tilings as they are, active force, and genial 
feeling, which he had never before seen combined. 

The wise mind of the duchess gave the first impulse to 
the noble course of Weimar. But that her son should have 
availed himself of the foundation she laid is praise enough, in 
a world where there is such a rebound from parental influ- 
ence that it generally seems that the child makes use of the 
directions given by the parent only to avoid the prescribed 



32 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

path. The duke availed himself of guidance, though With a 
perfect independence in action. The duchess had the unusual 
wisdom to know the right time for giving up the reins, and 
thus maintained her authority as far as the weight of her 
character was calculated to give it. 

Of her Goethe was thinking when he wrote, " The admira- 
ble woman is she, who, if the husband dies, can be a father to 
the children." 

The duke seems to have been one of those characters 
which are best known by the impression their personal pres- 
ence makes on us, resembling an elemental and pervasive 
force, rather than wearing the features of an individuality. 
Goethe describes him as " Damonische" that is, gifted with an 
instinctive, spontaneous force, which at once, without calcu- 
lation or foresight, chooses the right means to an end. As 
these beings do not calculate, so is their influence incalculable. 
Their repose has as much influence over other being- as their 
action, even as the thunder cloud, lying black and distant in 
the summer sky, is not less imposing than when it bursts and 
gives forth its quick lightnings. Such men were Mirabeau 
and Swift. They had also distinct talents, but their influence 
was from a perception in the minds of men of this spontane- 
ous energy in their natures. Sometimes, though rarely, we 
see such a man in an obscure position ; circumstances have 
not led him to a large sphere; he may not have expressed in 
words a single thought worth recording; but by his eye and 
voice he rules all around him. 

He stands upon his feet with a firmness and calm security 
which make other men seem to halt and totter in their gait. 
In his deep eye is seen an infinite comprehension, an infinite 
reserve of power. No accent of his sonorous voice is lost on 
any ear within hearing: and. when he speaks, men hate or 
tear perhaps the disturbing power they feel, but never dream 
of disobeying. Bui hear Goethe himself. 

"The boy believed in nature, in the animate; and inanimate, 



GOETHE. 38 

the intelligent and unconscious, to discover somewhat which 
manifested itself only through contradiction, and therefore could 
not be comprehended by any conception, much less defined by 
a word. It was not divine, for it seemed without reason ; not 
human, because without understanding ; not devilish, because 
it worked to good ; not angelic, because it often betrayed a 
petulant love of mischief. It was like chance, in that it 
proved no sequence ; it suggested the thought of Providence, 
because it indicated connection. To this all our limitations 
seem penetrable ; it seemed to play at will with all the ele- 
ments of our being ; it compressed time and dilated space. 
Only in the impossible did it seem to delight, and to cast the 
possible aside with disdain. 

" This existence which seemed to mingle with others, some- 
times to separate*, sometimes to unite, I called the Damonische, 
after the example of the ancients, and others who have ob- 
served somewhat similar." — Dichtung unci Wahrheit. 

" The Damonische is that which cannot be explained by 
reason or understanding ; it lies not in my nature, but I am 
subject to it. 

" Napoleon was a being of this class, and in so high a de- 
gree that scarce any one is to be compared with him. Also 
our late grand duke was such a nature, full of unlimited 
power of action and unrest, so that his own dominion was 
too little for him, and the greatest would have been too little. 
Demoniac beings of this sort the Greeks reckoned among 
their demigods." — Conversations with Eckermann.* 

This great force of will, this instinctive directness of action, 
gave the duke an immediate ascendency over Goethe which 
no other person had ever possessed. It was by no means 
mere sycophancy that made him give up the next ten years, 

[* Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, translated from the German 
by my sister, form one volume of the " Specimens of Foreign Literature," 
edited by Rev. George Ripley, and published in 1839. This volume has 
been republished by James Munroe & Co., Boston, within a few years. — Ed.] 



34 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

the prime of his manhood, to accompanying the grand duke 
in his revels, or aiding him in his schemes of practical utility, 
or to contriving elegant amusements for the ladies of the 
court. It was a real admiration for the character of the 

genial man of the world and its environment. 

Whoever is turned from his natural path may, if he will, 
gain in largeness and depth what he loses in simple beauty; 
and so it was with Goethe. Faust became a wiser if not a. 
nobler being. Werther, who must die because life was not 
wide enough and rich enough in love for him, ends as the 
Meister of the Wander jahre, well content to be one never 
inadequate to the occasion, " help-full, comfort-full." 

A great change was, during these years, perceptible to his 
friends in the character of Goethe. From being always 
"either too volatile or infatuated," he retreated into a self- 
collected state, which seemed at first even icy to those around 
him. No longer he darted about him the lightnings of his 
genius, but sat Jove-like and calm, with the thunderbolts 
grasped in his hand, and the eagle gathered to his feet. I lis 
freakish wit w r as subdued into a calm and even cold irony; 
his multiplied relations no longer permitted him to abandon 
himself to any; the minister and courtier could not expatiate 
in the free regions of invention, and bring upon paper the 
signs of his higher life, without subjecting himself to an arti- 
ficial process of isolation. Obliged to economy of time and 
means, he made of his intimates not objects of devout tender- 
ness, of disinterested care, but the crammers and feeders of 
his intellect. The world was to him an arena or a studio, but 
not a temple. 

" Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." 

Had Goethe entered upon practical life from the dictate of 
his spiritj which bade him not be a mere author, hut a living, 
loving man. that had all been well. But he most also be a 
man of the world, and nothing can lie more unfavorable to 
true manhood than this ambition. The citizen, the hero, the 



GCETHE. 35 

general, the poet, all these are in true relations ; but what is 
called being a man of the world is to truckle to it, not truly 
to serve it. 

Thus fettered in false relations, detained from retirement 
upon the centre of his being, yet so relieved from the early 
pressure of his great thoughts as to pity more pious souls for 
being restless seekers, no wonder that he wrote, — 

" Es ist dafur gesorgt dass die Baume nicht in den Hini- 
mel wachsen." 

" Care is taken that the trees grow not up into the heavens." 
Ay, Gcethe, but in proportion to their force of aspiration is 
their height. 

Yet never let him be confounded with those who sell all 
their birthright. He became blind to the more generous vir- 
tues, the nobler impulses, but ever in self-respect was busy to 
develop his nature. He was kind, industrious, wise, gentle- 
manly, if not manly. If his genius lost sight of the highest 
aim, he is the best instructor in the use of means ; ceasing to 
be a prophet poet, he was still a poetic artist. From this 
time forward he seems a listener to nature, but not him- 
self the highest product of nature, — a priest to the soul of 
nature. His works grow out of life, but are not instinct 
with the peculiar life of human resolve, as are Shakspeare's 
or Dante's. 

Faust contains the great idea of his life, as indeed there is 
but one great poetic idea possible to man — the progress of a 
soul through the various forms of existence. 

All his other works, whatever their miraculous beauty of 
execution, are mere chapters to this poem, illustrative of par- 
ticular points. Faust, had it been completed in the spirit in 
which it was begun, would have been the Divina Commedia 
of its age. 

But nothing can better show the difference of result between 
a stern and earnest life, and one of partial accommodation, 
than a comparison between the Paridiso and that of the second 



36 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

part of Faust. In both a soul, gradually educated and led 
back to God, is received at last not through merit, but grace. 
But the difference between the grandly humble reliance of 
old Catholicism, and the loophole redemption of modern 
sagacity! Dante was a man, of vehement passions, many 
prejudices, bitter as much as sweet His knowledge was 
scanty, his sphere of observation narrow, the object- of his 
active life petty, compared with those of Goethe, lint, con- 
stantly retiring to his deepest self, clearsighted to the limita- 
tions of man, but no less so to the illimitable energy of tin- 
soul, the sharpest details in his work convey a largest sense, 
as his strongest and steadiest flights only direct the eye to 
heavens yet beyond. 

Yet perhaps he had not so hard a battle to wage, as this 
other great poet. The fiercest passions are not so dangerous 
foes to the soul as the cold scepticism of the understanding. 
The Jewish demon assailed the man of Uz with physical ills , 
the Lucifer of the middle ages tempted his passions ; but the 
Mephistopheles of the eighteenth century bade the iiuite 
strive to compass the infinite, and the intellect attempt to 
solve all the problems of the soul. 

This path Faust had taken : it is that of modern necro- 
mancy. Not willing to grow into God by the steady worship 
of a life, men would enforce his presence by a spell ; not will- 
ing to learn his existence by the slow processes of their own, 
they strive to bind it in a word, that they may wear it about 
the neck as a talisman. 

Faust, bent upon reaching the centre of the universe through 
the intellect alone, naturally, after a length of trial, which has 
prevented the harmonious unfolding of his nature, falls into 
despair, lie has striven for one object, and that object eludes 
him. Returning upon himself, he finds large tracts of his 
nature lying waste and cheerless. He is too noble for apathy, 
too wise for vulgar content with the animal enjoyments of 
life. Yet the thirst he has been so many years increasing is 



GCETHE. 37 

not to be borne. Give me, he cries, but a drop of water to 
cool my burning tongue. Yet, in casting himself with a wild 
recklessness upon the impulses of his nature yet untried, there 
is a disbelief that any thing short of the All can satisfy the 
immortal spirit. His first attempt was noble, though mis- 
taken, and under the saving influence of it, he makes the 
compact, whose condition cheats the fiend at last. 

Kannst du mich schmeichelnd je beliigen 
Dass ich mir selbst gefallen mag, 
Kannst du mich mit Genuss betrugen : 
Das sey fur mich der letzte Tag. 

"Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen : 
Yerweile doch ! du bist so schon ! 
Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen, 
Dann will ich gern zu Grunde gehen. 

Canst thou by falsehood or by flattery 
Make me one moment with myself at peace, 
Cheat me into tranquillity ? Come then 
And welcome, life's last day. 
Make me but to the moment say, 
O fly not yet, thou art so fair, 
Then let me perish, &e. 

But this condition is never fulfilled. Faust cannot be con- 
tent with sensuality, with the charlatanry of ambition, nor 
with riches. His heart never becomes callous, nor his moral 
and intellectual perceptions obtuse. He is saved at last 

With the progress of an individual soul is shadowed forth 
that of the soul of the age; beginning in intellectual scepticism ; 
sinking into license; cheating itself with dreams of perfect 
bliss, to be at once attained by means no surer than a spurious 
paper currency ; longing itself back from conflict between the 
4 



38 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

spirit and the flesh, induced by Christianity, to the Greek era 
with its harmonious development of body and" mind; striving 
to re-embody the loved phantom of classical beauty in the 

heroism of the middle age; flying from the Byron despair of 
those who die because they cannot soar without wings, to 
schemes however narrow, of practical utility, — redeemed at 
last through mercy alone. 

The second part of Faust is full of meaning, resplendent 
with beauty; but it is rather an appendix to the first part 
than a fulfilment of its promise. The world, remembering 
the powerful stamp of individual feeling, universal indeed in 
its application, but individual in its life, which had conquered 
all its scruples in the first part, was vexed to find, instead of 
the man Faust, the spirit of the age, — discontented with the 
shadowy manifestation of truths it longed to embrace, and, 
above all, disappointed that the author no longer met us face 
to face, or riveted the ear by his deep tones of grief and 
resolve. 

When the world shall have got rid of the still overpower- 
ing influence of the first part, it will be seen that the funda- 
mental idea is never lost sight of in the second. The change 
is that Goethe, though the same thinker, is no longer the same 
person. 

The continuation of Faust in the practical sense of the 
education of a man is to be found in Wilhelm Meister. Here 
we see the change by strongest contrast. The mainspring of 
action is no longer the impassioned and noble seeker, but a 
disciple of circumstance, whose mosl marked characteristic is 
a taste for virtue and knowledge. Wilhelm certainly pn 
these conditions of existence to their opposites, but there i< 
nothing so decided in his character as to prevent his turning 
a clear eye on every part of that variegated world-scene 
which the writer wished to place before 08. 

To see all till he knows all sufficiently to put objects into 
their relations, then to concentrate his powers and use his 



GCETHE. 39 

knowledge under recognized conditions, — such is the progress 
of man from Apprentice to Muster. 

'Tis pity that the volumes of the Wanderjahre have not 
been translated entire, as well as those of the Lehrjahre, 
for many, who have read the latter only, fancy that Wilhelm 
becomes a master in that work. Far from it ; he has but 
just become conscious of the higher powers that have cease- 
lessly been weaving his fate. Far from being as yet a Mas- 
ter, he but now begins to be a Knower. In the Wander- 
jahre we find him gradually learning the duties of citizenship, 
and hardening into manhood, by applying what he has learned 
for himself to the education of his child. He converses on 
equal terms with the wise and beneficent ; he is no longer 
duped and played with for his good, but met directly mind to 
mind. 

Wilhelm is a master when he can command his actions, 
yet keep his mind always open to new means of knowledge ; 
when he has looked at various ways of living, various forms 
of religion and of character, till he has learned to be tolerant 
of all, discerning of good in all ; when the astronomer im- 
parts to his equal ear his highest thoughts, and the poor cot- 
tager seeks his aid as a patron and counsellor. 

To be capable of all duties, limited by none, with an open 
eye, a skilful and ready hand, an assured step, a mind deep, 
calm, foreseeing without anxiety, hopeful without the aid of 
illusion, — such is the ripe state of manhood. This attained, 
the great soul should still seek and labor, but strive and bat- 
tle never more. 

The reason for Goethe's choosing so negative a character as 
Wilhelm, and leading him through scenes of vulgarity and 
low vice, would be obvious enough to a person of any depth 
of thought, even if he himself had not announced it. He 
thus obtained room to paint life as it really is, and bring tor- 
ward those slides in the magic lantern which are always known 
to exist, though they may not be spoken of to ears polite. 



40 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Wilhelm cannot abide in tradition, nor do as his fathers did 
before him, merely for the sake of money or a standing in 
society. The stage, here an emblem of the ideal life as it 
gleams before unpractised eves, offers, he fancies, opportunity 
for a life of thought as distinguished from one of routine. 
Here, no longer the simple citizen, but Man, all Men, he will 
rightly take upon himself the different aspects of life, till 
poet-wise, he shall have learned them all. 

No doubt the attraction of the stage to young persons of a 
vulgar character is merely the brilliancy of its trappings : but 
to Wilhelm, as to Goothe, it was this poetic freedom and daily 
suggestion which seemed likely to offer such an agreeable 
studio in the greenroom. 

But the ideal must be rooted in the real, else the poet's life 
degenerates into buffoonery or vice. Wilhelm finds the char- 
acters formed by this would-be ideal existence more despicable 
than those which grew up on the track, dusty and bustling 
and dull as it had seemed, of common life. lie is prepared 
by disappointment for a higher ambition. 

In the house of the count he finds genuine elegance, genu- 
ine sentiment, but not sustained by wisdom, or a devotion to 
important objects. This love, this life, is also inadequate. 

Now, with Teresa he sees the blessings of dome-lie peace. 
He sees a mind sufficient for itself, finding employment and 
education in the perfect economy of a little world. The 
son is pertinent to the state of mind in which his former ex- 
periences have left him. as indeed our deepest lore is won 
from reaction. But a sudden change of scene introduces him 
to the society of the sage and learned uncle, the sage and be- 
neficent Natalia. Here he finds the same virtues as with 
Teresa, and enlightened by a larger wisdom. 

A friend of mine says that his ideal of a friend is a worthy 
aunt, one who has the tenderness without the blindness of a 
mother, and takes the same charge of the child's mind as the 
mother of its body. I don't know but this may have a foun- 



GCETHE. 41 

dation in truth, though, if so, auntism, like other grand profes- 
sions, has sadly degenerated. At any rate, Go3the seems to 
be possessed with a similar feeling. The Count de Thorane, 
a man of powerful character, who made a deep impression on 
his childhood, was, he says, " reverenced by me as an uncle." 
And the ideal wise man of this common life epic stands be- 
fore us as " The Uncle." 

After seeing the working of just views in the establishment 
of the uncle, learning piety from the Confessions of a Beau- 
tiful Soul, and religious beneficence from the beautiful life of 
Natalia, Wilhelm is deemed worthy of admission to the soci- 
ety of the Illuminati, that is, those who have pierced the 
secret of life, and know what it is to be and to do. 

Here he finds the scroll of his life " drawn with large, 
sharp strokes," that is, these truly wise read his character for 
him, and " mind and destiny are but two names for one idea." 

He now knows enough to enter on the Wanderjahre. 

Goethe always represents the highest principle in the femi- 
nine form. Woman is the Minerva, man the Mars. As in 
the Faust, the purity of Gretchen, resisting the demon always, 
even after all her faults, is announced to have saved her soul 
to heaven ; and in the second part she appears, not only re- 
deemed herself, but by her innocence and forgiving tenderness 
hallowed to redeem the being who had injured her. 

So in the Meister, these women hover around the narra- 
tive, each embodying the spirit of the scene. The frail Phi- 
lina, graceful though contemptible, represents the degradation 
incident to an attempt at leading an exclusively poetic life. 
Mignon, gift divine as ever the Muse bestowed on the pas- 
sionate heart of man, with her soft, mysterious inspiration, 
her pining for perpetual youth, represents the high desire that 
leads to this mistake, as Aurelia, the desire for excitement ; 
Teresa, practical wisdom, gentle tranquillity, which seem most 
desirable after the Aurelia glare. Of the beautiful soul and 
Natalia we have already spoken. The former embodies 
4* 



42 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

what was suggested to Goethe by the most spiritual person he 
knew in youth — Mademoiselle von Klettenberg, over whom, 
as lie said, in her invalid loneliness the Holy Ghost brooded 

like a dove. 

Entering on the Wanderjahre, Wilhelm becomes acquainted 

with another woman, who seems the complement oi' all the 
former, and represents the idea which is to guide and mould 
him in the realization of all the past experience. 

This person, long before we see her, is announced in vari- 
ous ways as a ruling power. She is the last hope in cases of 
difficulty, and, though an invalid, and living in absolute re- 
tirement, is consulted by her connections and acquaintance as 
an unerring judge in all their affairs. 

All things tend towards her as a centre ; she knows all, 
governs all, but never goes forth from herself. 

Wilhelm at last visits her. He finds her infirm in body, 
but equal to all she has to do. Charity and counsel to men 
who need her are her business, astronomy her pleasure. 

After a while, Wilhelm ascertains from the Astronomer, 
her companion, what he had before suspected, that she really 
belongs to the solar system, and only appears on earth to give 
men a feeling of the planetary harmony. From her youth 
up, says the Astronomer, till she knew me. though all recog- 
nized in her an unfolding of the highest moral and intellectual 
qualities, she was supposed to be sick at her times of clear 
vision. When her thoughts were not in the heavens, -he 
returned and acted in obedience to them on earth; she was 
then said to be well. 

When the Astronomer had observed her long enough, he 
confirmed her inward consciousness of a separate existence 
and peculiar union with the heavenly bodies. 

Her picture is painted with many delicate trait-, and a grad- 
ual preparation lead- the reader to acknowledge the truth : hut, 
even in the slight indication here given, who does not recognize 
thee, divine Philosophy, sure as the planetary orbits, and 



GCETHE. 43 

inexhaustible as the fountain of light, crowning the faithful 
Seeker at last with the privilege to possess his own soul. 

In all that is said of Macaria,* we recognize that no thought 
is too religious for the mind of Goethe. It was indeed so; 
you can deny him nothing, but only feel that his works are 
not instinct and glowing with the central fire, and, after catch- 
ing a glimpse of the highest truth, are forced again to find 
him too much afraid of losing sight of the limitations of nature 
to overflow you or himself with the creative spirit. 

While the apparition of the celestial Macaria seems to an- 
nounce the ultimate destiny of the soul of man, the practical 
application of all Wilhelm has thus painfully acquired is not 
of pure Delphian strain. Goethe draws, as he passes, a dart 
from the quiver of Phoebus, but ends as iEsculapius or Mer- 
cury. Wilhelm, at the school of the Three Reverences, thinks 
out what can be done for man in his temporal relations. He 
learns to practise moderation, and even painful renunciation. 
The book ends, simply indicating what the course of his life 
will be, by making him perform an act of kindness, with good 
judgment and at the right moment. 

Surely the simple soberness of Goethe should please at least 
those who style themselves, preeminently, people of common 
sense. 

The following remarks are by the celebrated Rahel von 
Ense, whose discernment as to his works was highly prized 
by Goethe. 

"Don Quixote and WiUielm Meister! 

"Embrace one another. Cervantes and Goethe! 

" Both, using their own clear q\o>, vindicated human na- 
ture. They saw the champions through their errors and 
follies, looking down into the deepest soul, seeing there the 

* The name of Macaria is one of noblest association. It is that of the 
daughter of Hercules, who devoted herself a voluntary sacrifice for her 
country. She was adored by the Greeks as the true Felicity- 



44 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN'. 

true form. Respectable people call the Don as well as 
Meister a fool, wandering hither and thither, transacting 
no business of real life, bringing nothing to pass, searce even 
knowing what he ought to think on any subject, very unfit for 
the hero of a romance. Yet has our sage known how to paint 
the good and honest mind in perpetual toil and conflict with 
the world, as it is embodied; never sharing one moment the 
impure confusion; always striving to find fault witli and im- 
prove itself, always so innocent as to see others far better 
than they are, and generally preferring them to itself, learning 
from all, indulging all except the manifestly base; the more 
you understand, the more you respect and love this character. 
Cervantes has painted the knight, Goethe the culture of the 
entire man, — both their own time." 

But those who demand from him a life-long continuance of 
the early ardor of Faust, who wish to see, throughout his 
works, not only such manifold beauty and subtle wisdom, but 
the clear assurance of divinity, the pure white light of Maca- 
ria, wish that he had not so variously unfolded his nature, and 
concentred it more. They would see him slaying the serpent 
with the divine wrath of Apollo, rather than taming it to his 
service, like iEsculapius. They wish that he had never gone 
to Weimar, had never become a universal connoisseur and 
dilettante in science, and courtier as " graceful as a born noble- 
man," but had endured the burden of life with the Buffering 
crowd, and deepened his nature in loneliness and privation. 
till Faust had conquered, rather than cheated the devil, and 
the music of heavenly faith superseded the grave and mild 
eloquence of human wisdom. 

The expansive genius which moved so gracefully in it- 
imposed tetters, is constantly surprising us by it- content with 
a choice low, in so far as it was not the highest of which the 
mind was capable. The secret may be found in the second 
motto of this slight essay. 



GCETHE. . 45 

" He who would do great things must quickly draw together 
his forces. The master can only show himself such through 
limitation, and the law alone can give us freedom." 

But there is a higher spiritual law always ready to super- 
sede the temporal laws at the call of the human soul. The 
soul that is too content with usual limitations will never call 
forth this unusual manifestation. 

If there be a tide in the affairs of men, which must be taken 
at the right moment to lead on to fortune, it is the same with 
inward as with outward life. He who, in the crisis hour of 
youth, has stopped short of himself, is not likely to find again 
what he has missed in one life, for there are a great number 
of blanks to a prize in each lottery. 

But the pang we feel that " those who are so much are not 
more," seems to promise new spheres, new ages, new crises 
to enable these beings to complete their circle. 

Perhaps Goethe is even now sensible that he should not 
have stopped at Weimar as his home, but made it one station 
on the way to Paradise ; not stopped at humanity, but regarded 
it as symbolical of the divine, and given to others to feel more 
distinctly the centre of the universe, as well as the harmony 
in its parts. It is great to be an Artist, a Master, greater 
still to be a Seeker till the Man has found all himself. 

What Goethe meant by self-collection was a collection of 
means for work, rather than to divine the deepest truths of 
being. Thus are these truths always indicated, never de- 
clared ; and the religious hope awakened by his subtle dis- 
cernment of the workings of nature never gratified, except 
through the intellect. 

He whose prayer is only work will not leave his treasure 
in the secret shrine. 

One is ashamed when finding any fault with one like 
Goethe, who is so great. It seems the only criticism should 
be to do all he omitted to do, and that none who cannot is 
entitled to say a word. Let that one speak who was all Goethe 



46 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

was not. — noble, true, virtuous, but neither wise nor subtle in 
his generation, a divine ministrant, a baffled man. ruled and 
imposed on by the pygmies whom he spurned, an heroic artist, 
a democrat to the tune of Burns : 

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp ; 
The man's the gowd for a' that." 

Hear Beethoven speak of Goethe on an occasion which 
brought out the two characters in strong contrast 

Extract from a letter of Beethoven to Bettina Brentano, 
Tbplitz, 1812. 

"Kings and princes can indeed make professors and privy 
councillors, and hang upon them titles; but great men they 
cannot make ; souls that rise above the mud of the world, 
these they must let be made by other means than theirs, and 
should therefore show them respect. When two such as I 
and Gcethe come together, then must great lord- observe what 
is esteemed great by one of us. Coming home yesterday we 
met the whole imperial family. We saw them coming, and 
Goethe left me and insisted on standing one side ; let me Bay 
what I would, I could not make him come on one step. I 
pressed my hat upon my head, buttoned my surtont, and 
passed on through the thickest crowd. Princes and parasites 
made way ; the Archduke Rudolph took off his hat ; the 
empress greeted me first. Their highnesses know mi-:. I 
was well amused to see the crowd pass by Goethe. At the 
side stood he, hat in hand, low bowed in reverence till all 
had gone by. Then 1 scolded him well; I gave no pardon, 
but reproached him with all his sin-, most of all those to- 
wards you, dearest Bettina; we had just been talking of 
you." 

If Beethoven appears, in this scene, somewhat arrogant and 
bearish, yet how noble his extreme compared with the oppo- 
site! Goethe's friendship with the grand duke we respect, 
for Karl August was a >tiong man. But we regret to see at 



GCETHE. 47 

the command of any and all members of the ducal family, 
and their connections, who had nothing but rank to recom- 
mend them, his time and thoughts, of which he was so chary 
to private friends. Beethoven could not endure to teach the 
Archduke Rudolph, who had the soul duly to revere his 
genius, because he felt it to be " hofdienst," court service. He 
received with perfect nonchalance the homage of the sover- 
eigns of Europe. Only the Empress of Russia and the Arch- 
duke Karl, whom he esteemed as individuals, had power to 
gratify liim by their attentions. Compare with Goethe's ob- 
sequious pleasure at being able gracefully to compliment such 
high personages, Beethoven's conduct with regard to the famous 
Heroic Symphony. This was composed at the suggestion of 
Bernadotte, while Napoleon was still in his first glory. He 
was then the hero of Beethoven's imagination, who hoped 
from him the liberation of Europe. With delight the great 
artist expressed in his eternal harmonies the progress of the 
Hero's soul. The symphony was finished, and even dedicated 
to Bonaparte, when the news came of his declaring himself 
Emperor of the French. The first act of the indignant artist 
was to tear off his dedication and trample it under foot; nor 
could he endure again even the mention of Napoleon until 
the time of his fall. 

Admit that Goethe had a natural taste for the trappings of 
rank and wealth, from which the musician was quite free, yet 
we cannot doubt that both saw through these externals to 
man as a nature ; there can be no doubt on whose side was 
the simple greatness, the noble truth. We pardon thee, 
Goethe, — but thee, Beethoven, we revere, for thou hast 
maintained the worship of the Manly, the Permanent, the 
True ! 

The clear perception which was in Goethe's better nature 
of the beauty of that steadfastness, of that singleness and 
simple melody of soul, which lie too much sacrificed to be- 
come "' the many-sided One," is shown most distinctly in his 



48 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

two surpassingly beautiful works, The Elective Affinities and 
Iphigenia. 

Not Werther, not the Nouvelle Heloise, bave been assailed 
with such a storm of indignation as the first-named of these 
Works, on the score of gross immorality, 

The reason probably is the subject ; any discussion of the 
validity of the marriage vow making society tremble to its 
foundation; and, secondly, the cold manner in which it is 
done. All that is in the book would be bearable to most 
minds if the writer had had less the air of a spectator, and 
had larded his work here and there with ejaculations of hor- 
ror and surprise. 

These declarations of sentiment on the part of the author 
seem to be required by the majority of readers, in order to 
an interpretation of his purpose, as sixthly, seventhly, and 
eighthly were, in an old-fashioned sermon, to rouse the audi- 
ence to a perception of the method made use of by the 
preacher. 

But it has always seemed to me that those who need not 
such helps to their discriminating faculties, but read a work 
so thoroughly as to apprehend its whole scope and tendency, 
rather than hear what the author says it means, will rej 
the Elective Affinities as a work especially what is called 
moral in its outward effect, and religious even to piety in it- 
spirit. The mental aberrations of the consorts from their 
plighted faith, though in the one case never indulged, and 
though in the other no veil of sophistry is casl over the weak- 
ness of passion, but all that is felt expressed with the op< -li- 
nes* of one who desires to legitimate what he feels, are pun- 
ished by terrible griefs and a fatal catastrophe. Ottilia, that 
being of exquisite purity, with intellect and character so har- 
monized in feminine beauty, as they never before were found 
in any portrait of woman painted by the hand of niaa. per- 
ishes, on finding she has been breathed on by unhallowed 
passion, and led to err even by her ignorant wishes against 



GCETHE. 49 

what is held sacred. The only personage whom we do not 
pity is Edward, for he is the only one who stifles the voice of 
conscience. 

There is indeed a sadness, as of an irresistible fatality, 
brooding over the whole. It seems as if only a ray of an- 
gelic truth could have enabled these men to walk wisely in 
this twilight, at first so soft and alluring, then deepening into 
blind horror. 

But if no such ray came to prevent their earthly errors, it 
seems to point heavenward in the saintly sweetness of Ottilia. 
Her nature, too fair for vice, too finely wrought even for 
error, comes lonely, intense, and pale, like the evening star on 
the cold, wintry night. It tells of other worlds, where the 
meaning of such strange passages as this must be read to 
those faithful and pure like her, victims perishing in the green 
garlands of a spotless youth to atone for the unworthiness of 
others. 

An unspeakable pathos is felt from the minutest trait of 
this character, and deepens with every new study of it. Not 
even in Shakspeare have I so felt the organizing power of 
genius. Through dead words I find the least gestures of this 
person, stamping themselves on my memory, betraying to the 
heart the secret of her life, which she herself, like all these 
divine beings, knew not. I feel myself familiarized with all 
beings of her order. I see not only what she was, but what she 
might have been, and live with her in yet untrodden realms. 

Here is the glorious privilege of a form known only in the 
world of genius. There is on it no stain of usage or calcula- 
tion to dull our sense of its immeasurable life. What in our 
daily walk, mid common faces and common places, fleets 
across us at moments from glances of the eye, or tones of the 
voice, is felt from the whole being of one of these children 
of genius. 

This precious gem is set in a ring complete in its enamel. 
I cannot hope to express my sense of the beauty of this book 
5 



50 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE >VITHL\\ 

as a work of art. I would not attempt it if I had elsewhere 
met any testimony to the same. The perfect picture, always be* 
fore the mind, of the chateau, the moss hut, the park, the gar- 
den, the lake, with its boat and the landing beneath the platan 
trees; the gradual manner in which both localities and per- 
sons grow upon us, more living than life, inasmuch as wc are, 
unconsciously, kept at our best temperature by the atmos- 
phere of genius, and thereby more delicate in our perceptions 
than amid our customary fogs ; the gentle unfolding of the 
central thought, as a flower in the morning sun ; then the 
conclusion, rising like a cloud, first soft and white, but dark- 
ening as it comes, till with a sudden wind it bursts above our 
heads ; the ease with which we every where find points of 
view all different, yet all bearing on the same circle, for, 
though we feel every hour new worlds, still before our eye 
lie the same objects, new, yet the same, unchangeable . 
always changing their aspects as we proceed, till at last we 
find we ourselves have traversed the circle, and know all we 
overlooked at first, — these things are worthy of our highest 
admiration. 

For myself, I never felt so completely that very thing 
which genius should always make us feel — that I was in its 
circle, and could not get out till its spell was done, and it3 
last spirit permitted to depart. I was not carried away, in- 
structed, delighted more than by other works, but I was there, 
living there, whether as the platan tree, or the architect, or 
any other observing part of the scene. The personages live 
too intensely to let us live in them; they draw around them- 
selves circles within the circle; we can only see them close, 
not be themselves. 

Others, it would seem, on closing the book, exclaim, u What 
an immoral book ! " I well remember my own thought, "It 
is a work of art ! " At last I understood that world within a 
world, that ripest fruit of human nature, which is culled art. 
With each perusal of the book my surprise and delight at this 



GCETHE. 51 

wonderful fulfilment of design grew. I understood why 
Goethe was well content to be called Artist, and his works, 
works of Art, rather than revelations. At this moment, re- 
membering what I then felt, I am inclined to class all my 
negations just written on this paper as stuff, and to look upon 
myself, for thinking them, with as much contempt as Mr. Car- 
lyle, or Mrs. Austin, or Mrs. Jameson might do, to say noth- 
ing of the German Gcetheans. 

Yet that they were not without foundation I feel again 
when I turn to the Iphigenia — a work beyond the possibility 
of negation; a work where a religious meaning not only 
pierces but enfolds the whole ; a work as admirable in art, 
still higher in significance, more single in expression. 

There is an English translation (I know not how good) of 
Goethe's Iphigenia. But as it may not be generally known, I 
will give a sketch of the drama. Iphigenia, saved, at the 
moment of the sacrifice made by Agamemnon in behalf of 
the Greeks, by the goddess, and transferred to the temple at 
Tauris, appears alone in the consecrated grove. Many 
years have passed since she was severed from the home of 
such a tragic fate, the palace of Mycenas. Troy had fallen, 
Agamemnon been murdered, Orestes had grown up to avenge 
his death. All these events were unknown to the exiled 
Iphigenia. The priestess of Diana in a barbarous land, she 
had passed the years in the duties of the sanctuary, and in 
acts of beneficence. She had acquired great power over the 
mind of Thoas, king of Tauris, and used it to protect stran- 
gers, whom it had previously been the custom of the country 
to sacrifice to the goddess. 

She salutes us with a soliloquy, of which I give a rude 
translation : — 

Beneath your shade, living summits 
Of this ancient, holy, thick-leaved grove, 
As in the silent sanctuary of the Goddess, 



52 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Still I walk with those same shuddering feelings, 

As when I trod these walks for the first time. 

My spirit cannot accustom itself to these places; 

Many years now has kept me here concealed 

A higher will, to which I am submissive; 

Yet ever am I, as at first, the stranger ; 

For ah ! the sea divides me from my beloved ones, 

And on the shore whole days I stand, 

Seeking with my soul the land of the Greeks, 

And to my sighs brings the rushing wave only 

Its hollow tones in answer. 

Woe to him who, far from parents, and brothers, and sisters, 

Drags on a lonely life. Grief consumes 

The nearest happiness away from his lips ; 

His thoughts crowd downwards — 

Seeking the hall of his fathers, where the Sun 

First opened heaven to him, and kindred-born 

In their first plays knit daily firmer and firmer 

The bond from heart to heart — I question not the Gods, 

Only the lot of woman is one of sorrow ; 

In the house and in the war man rules, 

Knows how to help himself in foreign lands, 

Possessions gladden and victory crowns him, 

And an honorable death stands ready to end his days. 

Within what narrow limits is bounded the luck of woman ! 

To obey a rude husband even is duty and comfort ; how sad 

When, instead, a hostile fate drives her out of her sphere ! 

So holds me Thoas, indeed a noble man, fast 

In solemn, sacred, but slavish bonds. 

O, with shame I confess that with secret reluctance 

I serve thee, Goddess, thee, my deliverer. 

My life should freely have been dedicate to thee, 
But I have always been hoping in thee, Diana, 
Who didst take in thy soft arms me, the rejected daughter 
Of the greatest king ! Yes, daughter of Zens, 



GGETHE. 53 

I thought if thou gavest such anguish to him, the high hero, 

The godlike Agamemnon ; 

Since he brought his dearest, a victim, to thy altar, 

That, when he should return, crowned with glory, from Ilium, 

At the same time thou would'st give to his arms his other 

treasures, 
His spouse, Electra, and the princely son ; 
Me also, thou would'st restore to mine own, 
Saving a second time me, whom from death thou didst save, 
From this worse death, — the life of exile here. 

These are the words and thoughts ; but how give an idea of 
the sweet simplicity of expression in the original, where every 
word has the grace and softness of a flower petal ? 

She is interrupted by a messenger from the king, who 
prepares her for a visit from himself of a sort she has dreaded. 
Thoas, who has always loved her, now left childless by the 
calamities of war, can no longer resist his desire to reanimate 
by her presence his desert house. He begins by urging her 
to tell him the story of her race, which she does in a way that 
makes us feel as if that most famous tragedy had never before 
found a voice, so simple, so fresh in its naivete is the recital. 

Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs 
over the race of Tantalus. 

Thoas. 
"Was it the same Tantalus, 

Whom Jupiter called to his council and banquets, 
In whose talk so deeply experienced, full of various learning, 
The Gods delighted as in the speech of oracles ? 

Iphigenia. 
It is the same, but the Gods should not 
Converse with men, as with their equals. 
The mortal race is much too weak 
Not to turn giddy on unaccustomed heights. 
5* 



54 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

He was not ignoble, neither a traitor, 

But for a servant too great, and as a companion 

Of the great Thunderer only a man. So was 

His fault also that of a man, its penalty 

Severe, and poets sing — Presumption 

And faithlessness cast him down from the throne of Jove, 

Into the anguish of ancient Tartarus; 

Ah, and all his race bore their hate. 

Thoas. 
Bore it the blame of the ancestor, or its own ? 

Iphigenia. 
Truly the vehement breast and powerful life of the Titan 
Were the assured inheritance of son and grandchild ; 
But the Gods bound their brows with a brazen band, 
Moderation, counsel, wisdom, and patience 
Were hid from their wild, gloomy glance, 
Each desire grew to fury, 
And limitless ranged their passionate thoughts. 

Iphigenia refuses with gentle firmness to give to gratitude 
what "was not due. Thoas leaves her in anger, and, to make 
her feel it, orders that the old, barbarous custom be renewed, 
and two strangers just arrived be immolated at Diana's altar. 

Iphigenia, though distressed, is not shaken by \\n< piece of 
tyranny. She trusts her heavenly protectres- will lind BOme 
way for her to save these unfortunates without violating her 
truth. 

The strangers are Orestes and Pylades, sent thither by the 
oracle of Apollo, who bade them go to Tauris and bring 
back "The Sister;" thus shall the heaven-ordained parricide 
of Orestes be expiated, and the Furies cease to pursue him. 

The Sister they interpret to be Dian, Apollo's Bister; but 
Iphigenia, sister to Orestes, is really meant. 



GCETHE. 55 

The next act contains scenes of most delicate workmanship, 
first between the light-hearted Pylades, full of worldly re- 
source and ready tenderness, and the suffering Orestes, of far 
nobler, indeed heroic nature, but less fit for the day and more 
for the ages. In the first, scene the characters of both are 
brought out with great skill, and the nature of the bond between 
" the butterfly and the dark flower," distinctly shown in few 
words. 

The next scene is between Iphigenia and Pylades. Pyla- 
des, though he truly answers the questions of the priestess 
about the fate of Troy and the house of Agamemnon, does not 
hesitate to conceal from her who Orestes really is, and manu- 
factures a tissue of useless falsehoods with the same readiness 
that the wise Ulysses showed in exercising his ingenuity on 
similar occasions. 

It is said, I know not how truly, that the modern Greeks 
are Ulyssean in this respect, never telling straightforward 
truth, when deceit will answer the purpose ; and if they tell 
any truth, practising the economy of the King of Ithaca, in 
always reserving a part for their own use. The character 
which this denotes is admirably hit off with few strokes in 
Pylades, the fair side of whom Iphigenia thus paints in a later 
scene. 

Bless, ye Gods, our Pylades, 

And whatever he may undertake ; 

He is the arm of the youth in battle, 

The light-giving eye of the aged man in the council. 

For his soul is still ; it preserves 

The holy possession of Repose unexhausted, 

And from its depths still reaches 

Help and advice to those tossed to and fro. 

Iphigenia leaves him in sudden agitation, when informed 
of the death of Agamemnon. Returning, she finds in his place 



56 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Orestes, whom she had not before seen, and draws from him 
by her artless questions the sequel to this terrible drama 
wrought by his hand. After he has concluded his narrative, 
in the deep tones of cold anguish, she cries, — 

Immortals, you who through your bright days 

Live in bliss, throned on clouds ever renewed, 

Only for this have you all these years 

Kept me separate from men, and so near yourselves, 

Given me the child-like employment to cherish the fires on 

your altars, 
That my soul might, in like pious clearness, 
Be ever aspiring towards your abodes, 
That only later and deeper I might feel 
The anguish and horror that have darkened my house. 

O Stranger, 
Speak to me of the unhappy one, tell me of Orestes. 

Orestes. 
O, might I speak of his death ! 
Vehement flew up from the reeking blood 
His Mother's Soul ! 

And called to the ancient daughters of Night, 
Let not the parricide escape ; 
Pursue that man of crime ; he is yours ! 
They obey, their hollow eyes 
Darting about with vulture eagerness ; 
They stir themselves in their black dens, 
From corners their companions 
Doubt and Remorse steal out to join them : 
Before them roll the mists of Acheron ; 
In its cloudy volumes rolls 
The eternal contemplation of the irrevocable. 
Permitted now in their love of ruin they tread 
The beautiful fields of a God-planted earth, 



GCETHE. 57 

From which they had long been banished by an early curse, 

Their swift feet follow the fugitive, 

They pause never except to gather more power to dismay. 

Iphigenia. 
Unhappy man, thou art in like manner tortured, 
And feelest truly what he, the poor fugitive, suffers ! 

Orestes. 
"What sayest thou ? what meanest by " like manner " ? 

Iphigenia. 
Thee, too, the weight of a fratricide crushes to earth ; the tale 
I had from thy younger brother. 

Orestes. 
I cannot suffer that thou, great soul, 
Shouldst be deceived by a false tale ; 
A web of lies let stranger weave for stranger 
Subtle with many thoughts, accustomed to craft, 
Guarding his feet against a trap. 

But between us 
Be Truth ; — 

I am Orestes, — and this guilty head 
Bent downward to the grave seeks death ; 
In any shape were he welcome. 
Whoever thou art, I wish thou mightst be saved, 
Thou and my friend ; for myself I wish it not. 
Thou seem'st against thy will here to remain ; 
Invent a way to fly and leave me here. 

Like all pure productions of genius, this may be injured by 
the slightest change, and I dare not flatter myself that the 
English words give an idea of the heroic dignity expressed in 
the cadence of the original, by the words 



58 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

" Twischeo uns 
Seg Wahrheit ! 
Ich bin Orest ! " 

where the Greek seems to fold his robe around him in the 
full strength of classie manhood, prepared for worst and beat) 
not like a cold Stoic, but a hero, who can feel all, know all, 
and endure all. The name of two syllables in the German 
is much more forcible for the pause, than the three-syllable 
Orestes. 

" Between us 
Be Truth," 

is fine to my ear, on which our word Truth also pauses with 
a large dignity. 

The scenes go on more and more full of breathing beauty. 
The lovely joy of Iphigenia, the meditative softness with 
which the religiously educated mind perpetually draws the 
inference from the most agitating events, impress us more 
and more. At last the hour of trial comes. She is to keep 
off Thoas by a cunningly devised tale, while her brother and 
Pylades contrive their escape. Orestes has received to his 
heart the sister long lost, divinely restored, and in the em- 
brace the curse falls from him, he is well, and Pylades more 
than happy. The ship waits to carry her to the palace home 
she is to free from a century's weight of pollution : and 
already the blue heavens of her adored Greece gleam before 
her fancy. 

But, O, the step before all this can be obtained ; — to de- 
ceive Thoas, a savage and a tyrant indeed, but long her pro- 
tector, — in his barbarous fashion, her benefactor! How can 
she buy life, happiness, or even the safety of those dear ones 
at such a price ? 

* Woe, 
O Woe upon the lie ! It frees not the breast, 
Like the true-spoken word ; it comforts not, but tortures 



G(KTHE. 59 

Him who devised it, and returns, 

An arrow once let fly, God-repelled, back, 

On the bosom of the Archer ! " 

O, must I then resign the silent hope 
Which gave a beauty to my loneliness ? 
Must the curse dwell forever, and our race 
Never be raised to life by a new blessing ? 
All things decay, the fairest bliss is transient, 
The powers most full of life grow faint at last ; 
And shall a curse alone boast an incessant life ? 

Then have I idly hoped that here kept pure, 
So strangely severed from my kindred's lot, 
I was designed to come at the right moment, 
And with pure hand and heart to expiate 
The many sins that stain my native home. 
To lie, to steal the sacred image ! 
Olympians, let not these vulture talons 
Seize on the tender breast. O, save me, 
And save your image in my soul ! 

Within my ears resounds the ancient lay, — 

I had forgotten it, and would so gladly, — 

The lay of the Parcoe, which they awful sung ; 

As Tantalus fell from his golden seat 

They suffered with the noble friend. Wrathful 

Was their heart, and fearful was the song. 

In our childhood the nurse was wont to sing it 

To me, and my brother and sister. I marked it well. 

Then follows the sublime song of the Parcie, well known 
through translations. 

But Iphigenia is not a victim of fate, for she listens stead- 
fastly to the god in her breast. Her lips are incapable of 
subterfuge. She obeys her own heart, tells all to the king, 



60 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

calls up his better nature, wins, hallows, and purifies all 
around her, till the heaven-prepared way is cleared by the 
obedient child of heaven, and the great trespass of Tantalus 
cancelled by a woman's reliance on the voice of her inno- 
cent soul. 

If it be not possible to enhance the beauty with which such 
ideal figures as the Iphigenia and the Antigone appeared to 
the Greek mind, yet Goethe has unfolded a part of the life 
of this being, unknown elsewhere in the records of literature. 
The character of the priestess, the full beauty of virgin 
womanhood, solitary, but tender, wise and innocent, sensitive 
and self-collected, sweet as spring, dignified as becomes the 
chosen servant of God, each gesture and word of deep and 
delicate significance, — where else is such a picture to be 
found ? 

It was not the courtier, nor the man of the world, nor the 
connoisseur, nor the friend of Mephistopheles, nor Wilbelm 
the Master, nor Egmont the generous, free liver, that WW 
Iphigenia in the world of spirits, but Goethe, in his first-born 
glory; Goethe, the poet; Goethe, designed to be the brightest 
star in a new constellation. Let us not, in surveying his 
works and life, abide with him too much in the suburbs and 
outskirts of himself. Let us enter into his higher tendency, 
thank him for such angels as Iphigenia, whose simple truth 
mocks at all his wise " Beschrankungen," and hope the hour 
when, girt about with many such, he will confess, contrary to 
his opinion, given in his latest days, that it it well worth 
while to live seventy years, if only to find that they are noth- 
ing in the sight of God. 



THOMAS HOOD. 

Now almost the last light has gone out of the galaxy that 
made the first thirty years of this age so bright. And the 
dynasty that now reigns over the world of wit and poetry is 
poor and pale, indeed, in comparison. 

We are anxious to pour due libations to the departed ; we 
need not economize our wine ; it will not be so often needed 
now. 

Hood has closed the most fatiguing career in the world — 
that of a professed wit ; and we may say with deeper feeling 
than of others who shuffle off the load of care, May he rest in 
peace ! The fatigues of a conqueror, a missionary preacher, 
even of an active philanthropist, like Howard, are nothing 
to those of a professed wit. Bad enough is it when he is only 
a man of society, by whom every one expects to be enlivened 
and relieved ; who can never talk gravel)* in a corner, with- 
out those around observing that he must have heard some 
bad news to be so out of spirits ; who can never make a 
simple remark, while eating a peaceful dinner, without the 
table being set in a roar of laughter, as when Sheridan, on 
such an occasion, opened his lips for the first time to say that 
" he liked currant jelly." For these unhappy men there are 
no intervals of social repose, no long silences fed by the mere 
feeling of sympathy or gently entertained by observation, no 
warm quietude in the mild liveries of green or brown, for the 
world has made up its mind that motley is their only wear, 
and teases them to jingle their bells forever. 

But far worse is it when the professed wit is also by profes- 
sion a writer, and finds himself obliged to coin for bread those 

6 r«n 



62 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

jokes which, in the frolic exuberance of youth, he so easily 
coined for fun. We can conceive of no existence more cruel, 
so tormenting, and at the same time so dull. We hear that 
Hood was forever behindhand with his promises to pub- 
lishers ; no wonder ! But when we hear that he, in conse- 
quence, lost a great part of the gains of his hard life, and 
was, as a result, harassed by other cares, we cannot mourn 
to lose him, if, 

" After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well ; " 

or if, as our deeper knowledge leads us to hope, he is now 
engaged in a better life, where his fancies shall take their 
natural place, and flicker like light on the surface of a pro- 
found and full stream flowing betwixt rich and peaceful 
shores, such as, no less than the drawbacks upon his earthly 
existence, are indicated in the following 

SONNET. 
The curse of Adam, the old curse of all, 

Though I inherit in this feverish life 

Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife, 
And fruitless thought in care's eternal thrall, 
Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall 

I taste through thee, my Eva. my sweet wife. 

Then what was Man's lost Paradise ? how rife 
Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall ! 

Such as our own pure passion still might frame 
Of this fair earth and its delightful bovvers, 

If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came 
To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flowers ; 
But, O ! as many and such tears are ours 

As only should be shed for guilt and shame. 

In Hood, as in all true wits, the smile lightens on the 
verge of a tear. True wit and humor show that exquisite 



THOMAS HOOD. 63 

sensibility to the relations of life, that fine perception as to 
slight tokens of its fearful, hopeless mysteries, which imply 
pathos to a still higher degree than mirth. 

Hood knew and welcomed the dower which nature gave 
him at his birth, when he wrote thus : — 

All things are touched with melancholy 

Born of the secret soul's mistrust, 
To feel her fair ethereal wings 

Weighed down with vile, degraded dust. 
Even the bright extremes of joy 

Bring on conclusions of disgust, 
Like the sweet blossoms of the May, 

Whose fragrance ends in must. 
0, give her, then, her tribute just, 

Her sighs and tears and musings holy ; 
There is no music in the life 

That sounds with idiot laughter solely ; 
There's not a string attuned to mirth, 

But has its chord in melancholy. 

Hood w#s true to this vow of acceptance. He vowed to 
accept willingly the pains as well as joys of life for what 
they could teach. Therefore, years expanded and enlarged 
his sympathies, and gave to his lightest jokes an obvious har- 
mony with a great moral design, not obtrusively obvious, but 
enough so to give a sweetness and permanent complacency 
to our laughter. Indeed, what is written in his gayer mood 
has affected us more, as spontaneous productions always do, 
than what he has written of late with grave design, and which 
has been so much lauded by men too obtuse to discern a latent 
meaning, or to believe in a good purpose unless they are for- 
mally told that it exists: 

The later serious poems of Hood are well known ; so are 
his jest books and novel. We have now in view to speak 



64 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

rather of a little volume of poems published by him some 
years since, republished here, but never widely circulated. 

When a book or a person comes to us in the best possible 
circumstances, we judge — not too favorably, for all that the 
book or person can suggest is a part of its fate, and what is 
not seen under the most favorable circumstances is never 
quite truly seen either as to promise or performance — but 
we form a judgment above what can be the average sense of 
the world in general as to its merits, which may be esteemed, 
after time enough has elapsed, a tolerably fair estimate of per- 
formance, though not of promise or suggestion. 

We became acquainted with these poems in one of those 
country towns which would be called, abroad, the most pro- 
vincial of the province. The inhabitants had lost the simpli- 
city of farmers' habits, without gaining in its place the 
refinement, the variety, the enlargement of civic life. Their 
industry had received little impulse from thought ; their 
amusement was gossip. All men find amusement from gossip 
— literary, artistic, or social; but the degrees in it arc almost 
infinite. They were at the bottom of the scale; they scruti- 
nized their neighbors' characters and affairs incessantly, im- 
pertinently, and with minds unpuriiied by higher knowledge ; 
consequently the bitter fruits of envy and calumny abounded. 

In this atmosphere I was detained two months, and among 
people very uncongenial both to my tastes and notions of 
right. But I had a retreat of great beauty. The town lay 
on the bank of a noble river; behind it towered a high and 
rocky hill. Thither every afternoon went the lonely stranger, 
to await the fall of the sunset light on the opposite hank of the 
full and rapid stream. It fell like a smile of heavenly joy; 
the white sails on the stream glided along like angel thoughts; 
the town itself looked like a fair nest, whence virtue and 
happiness might soar with sweetest song. So looked the scene 
from above; and that hill was the scene of many an aspira- 
tion and many an effort to attain as high a point of view for 



THOMAS HOOD. 65 

the mental prospect, in the hope that little discrepancies, or 
what seemed so when on a level with them, might also, from 
above, be softened into beauty and found subservient to a 
noble design on the whole. 

This town boasted few books, and the accident which threw 
Hood's poems in the way of the watcher from the hill, was a 
very fortunate one. They afforded a true companionship to 
hours which knew no other, and, perhaps, have since been 
overrated from association with what they answered to or 
suggested. 

Yet there are surely passages in them which ought to be 
generally known and highly prized. And if their highest 
value be for a few individuals with whom they are especially 
in concord, unlike the really great poems which bring some- 
thing to all, yet those whom they please will be very much 
pleased. 

Hood never became corrupted into a hack writer. This 
shows great strength under his circumstances. Dickens has 
fallen, and Sue is falling ; for few men can sell themselves by 
inches without losing a cubit from their stature. But Hood 
resisted the danger. He never wrote when he had nothing 
to say, he stopped when he had done, and never hashed for a 
second meal old thoughts which had been drained of their 
choicest juices. His heart is truly human, tender, and brave. 
From the absurdities of human nature he argues the possi- 
bility of its perfection. His black is admirably contrasted 
with his white, but his love has no converse of hate. His 
descriptions of nature, if not accurately or profoundly evi- 
dencing insight, are unstudied, fond, and reverential. They 
are fine reveries about nature. 

He has tried his powers on themes where he had great 
rivals — in the " Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," and " Hero 
and Leander." The latter is one of the finest subjects in the 
world, and one, too, which can never wear out as long as each 
mind shall have its separate ideal of what a meeting would be 



bb LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

between two perfect lovers, in the full bloom of beauty and 
youth, under circumstances the most exalting to passion, be- 
cause the most trying, and with the most romantic accom- 
paniments of scenery. There is room here for the finest 
expression of love and grief, for the wildest remonstrance 
against fate. Why are they made so lovely and so beloved ? 
Why was a flower brought to such perfection, and then culled 
for no use? One of the older English writers has written an 
exquisite poem on this subject, painting a youthful pair, fitted 
to be not only a heaven but a world to one another. Hood 
had not power to paint or conceive such fulness of character ; 
but, in a lesser style, he has written a fine poem. The best 
part of it, however, is the innocent cruelty and grief of the 
Sea Siren. 

" Lycus the Centaur " is also a poem once read never to 
be forgotten. The hasty trot of the versification, unfit for any 
other theme, on this betokens well the frightened horse. Its 
mazy and bewildered imagery, with its countless glancings 
and glimpses, expressed powerfully the working of the Circean 
spell, while the note of human sadness, a yearning and con- 
demned human love, thrills through the whole and gives it 
unity. 

The Sonnets, " It is not death," See, and that on Silence, 
are equally admirable. Whoever reads these poems will 
regard Hood as something more than a great wit, — as a 
great poet also. 

To express this is our present aim, and therefore we shall 
leave to others, or another time, the retrospect of his comic writ- 
ings. But having, on the late promptings of love for the de- 
parted, looked over these, we have been especially amused with 
the "Schoolmistress Abroad,'' which was new to us. Mi- 
Crane, a " she Mentor, stiff as starch, formal as a Dutch ledge, 
sensitive as a daguerreotype, and so tall. thin, and upright, that 
supposing the Tree of Knowledge to have been a poplar, she 
was the very Dryad to have fitted it." was left, with a sister 



THOMAS HOOD. 67 

little better endowed with the pliancy and power of adaptation 
which the exigencies of this varied world-scene demand, in 
attendance upon a sick father, in a foreign inn, where she 
cannot make herself understood, because her French is not 
" French French, but English French," and no two things in 
nature or art can be more unlike. Now look at the position 
of the sisters. 

" The younger, Miss Ruth, was somewhat less disconcerted. 
She had by her position the greater share in the active duties 
of Lebanon House, and under ordinary circumstances would 
not have been utterly at a loss what to do for the comfort or 
relief of her parent. But in every direction in which her 
instinct and habits would have prompted her to look, the 
materials she sought were deficient. There was no easy 
chair — no fire to wheel it to — no cushion to shake up — no 
cupboard to go to — no female friend to consult — no Miss 
Parfitt — no cook — no John to send for the doctor — no 
English — no French — nothing but that dreadful ' Gefullig,' 
or ' Ja Wohl,' and the equally incomprehensible ' Gnadige 
Frau ! ' 

" ' Der herr,' said the German coachman, ' ist sehr krank,' 
(the gentleman is very sick.) 

" The last word had occurred so frequently on the organ of 
the Schoolmistress, that it had acquired in her mind some 
important significance. 

" ' Ruth, what is krank ? ' 

" * How should I know ? ' retorted Ruth, with an asperity 
apt to accompany intense excitement and perplexity. ' In 
English, it's a thing that helps to pull the bell. But look at 
papa — do help to support him — you're good for nothing.' 

" < I am, indeed,' murmured poor Miss Priscilla, with a 
gentle shake of her head, and a low, slow sigh of acquiescence. 
Alas ! as she ran over the catalogue of her accomplishments, 
the more she remembered what she could do for her sick 
parent, the more helpless and useless she appeared. For 



68 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

instance, she could have embroidered him a night-cap — or 
knitted him a silk purse — or plaited him a guard-chain — ■ 
or cut him out a watch-paper — or ornamented his braces 
with bead-work — or embroidered his waistcoat — or worked 
him a pair of slippers — or openworked his pocket handker- 
chief. She could even, if such an operation would have been 
comforting or salutary, have roughcasted him with shell-work 

— or coated him with red or black seals — or encrusted him 
with blue alum — or stuck him all over with colored wafers 

— or festooned him. 

" But alas ! what would it have availed her poor dear papa 
in the spasmodics, if she had even festooned him, from top to 
toe, with little rice-paper roses ?" 

The comments of the female chorus, as the author reads 
aloud the sorrows of Miss Crane, are droll as Hood's drollest. 
Who can say more ? 

So farewell, gentle, generous, inventive, genial, and most 
amusing friend. We thank thee for both tears and laughter; 
tears which were not heart-breaking, laughter which was 
never frivolous or unkind. In thy satire was no gall, in the 
sting of thy winged wit no venom, in the pathos of thy sorrow 
no enfeebling touch ! Thou hadst faults as a writer, we know 
not whether as a man ; but who cares to name or even to 
note them ? Surely there is enough on the sunny side of 
the peach to feed us and make us bless the tree from which 
it fell. 



LETTERS FROM A LANDSCAPE PAINTER* 

This is a very pleasing book, and if the " Essays of Sum- 
mer Hours " resemble it, we are not surprised at the favor 
with which they have been received, not only in this country, 
but in England. 

The writer is, we believe, very young, and as these Essays 
have awakened in us a friendly expectation which he has time 
and talent to fulfil, we will, at this early hour, proffer our 
counsel on two points. 

First. Avoid details, so directly personal, of emotion. A 
young and generous mind, seeing the deceit and cold reserve 
which so often palsy men who write, no less than those who 
act, may run into the opposite extreme. But frankness must 
be tempered by delicacy, or elevated into the region of poetry. 
You may tell the world at large what you please, if you make 
it of universal importance by transporting it into the field of 
general human interest. But your private griefs, merely as 
yours, belong to yourself, your nearest friends, to Heaven and 
to nature. There is a limit set by good taste, or the sense of 
beauty, on such subjects, which each, who seeks, may find for 
himself. 

Second. Be more sparing of your praise : above all, of its 
highest terms. We should have a sense of mental as well 
as moral honor, which, while it makes us feel the baseness of 
uttering merely hasty and ignorant censure, will also forbid that 
hasty and extravagant praise which strict truth will not justify. 
A man of honor wishes to utter no word to which he cannot 
adhere. The offices of Poet — of Hero-worship — are sacred, 

* " By the Author of Essays of Summer Hours." 



70 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

and he who has a heart to appreciate the excellent should call 
nothing excellent which falls short of being so. Leave your- 
self some incense worthy of the best ; do not lavish it on the 
merely good. It is better to be too cool than extravagant in 
praise ; and though mediocrity may be elated if it can draw 
to itself undue honors, true greatness shrinks from the least 
exaggeration of its claims. The truly great are too well 
aware how difficult is the attainment of excellence, what 
labors and sacrifices it requires, even from genius, either to 
flatter themselves as to their works, or to be otherwise than 
grieved at idolatry from others ; and so, with best wishes, and 
a hope to meet again, we bid farewell to the " Landscape 
Painter." 



BEETHOVEN* 

This book bears on its outside the title, " Life of Beetho- 
ven, by Moscheles." It is really only a translation of Schin- 
dler, and it seems quite unfair to bring Moscheles so much 
into the foreground, merely because his name is celebrated in 
England. He has only contributed a few notes and a short 
introduction, giving a most pleasing account of his own devo- 
tion to the Master. Schindler was the trusty friend of 
Beethoven, and one whom he himself elected to write his 
biography. Inadequate as it is, there is that fidelity in the col- 
lection of materials which makes it serviceable to our knowl- 
edge of Beethoven, and we wish it might be reprinted in 
America. Though there is little knowledge of music here, yet 
so far as any exists in company with a free development of 
mind, the music of Beethoven is the music which delights, 
which awakens, which inspires, an infinite hope. 

This influence of these most profound, bold, original and sin- 
gular compositions, even upon the uninitiated, above those of 
a simpler construction and more obvious charms, we have ob- 
served with great pleasure. For we think its cause lies deep, 
far beneath fancy, taste, fashion, or any accidental cause. 

It is because there is a real and steady unfolding of cer- 
tain thoughts which pervade the civilized world. They strike 
their roots through to us beneath the broad Atlantic ; and 
these roots shoot stems UDward to the light wherever the soil 
allows them free course. 

* The Life of Beethoven, including his Correspondence with his Friends, 
numerous characteristic Traits, and Remarks on his Musical Works. Edited 
by Ignace Moscheles, Pianist to His lioyal Highness Prince Alhert. 



72 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Our era, which permits of freer inquiry, of bolder experi- 
ment, than ever before, and a firmer, broader basis, may abo, 
we sincerely trust, be depended on tor nobler discovery and a 
grander scope of thought. 

Although we sympathize with the sadness of those who 
lament the decay of forms and methods round which so many 
associations have wound their tendrils, and understand the Buf- 
ferings which gentle, tender natures undergo from the forlorn 
homelessness of a period of doubt, speculation, reconstruct ion 
in every way, yet we cannot disjoin ourselves, by one mo- 
ment's fear or regret, from the advance corps. That body, 
leagued by an invisible tie, has received too deep an assur- 
ance that the spirit is not dead nor sleeping, to look back to 
the past, even if they must advance uniformly through scenes' 
of decay and the rubbish of falling edifices. 

But how far it is from being so ! How many developments, 
in various ways, of truth ! How manifold the aspirations of 
love ! In the church the attempt is now to reconstruct on the 
basis proposed by its founder — " Love one another;" in the 
philosophy of mind, if completeness of system is, as yet, far 
from being attained, yet mistakes and vain dogmas are set 
aside, and examinations conducted with intelligence and an 
enlarged discernment of what is due both to God and man. 
Science advances, in some route with colossal strides ; new 
glimpses are daily gained into the arcana of natural history, 
and the mysteries attendant on the modes of growth, are laid 
open to our observation; while in chemistry, electricity, mag- 
netism, we seem to be getting nearer to the law of life which 
governs them, and in astronomy " fathoming the heavens," 
to use the sublime expression of HerscheL, daily t<» greater 
depths, we find ourselves admitted to a perception of the uni- 
versal laws and causes, where harmony, permanence and per- 
fection leave us no excuse for a moment of despondency, 
while under the guidance of a Power who has ordered all 
so well. 



BEETHOVEN. 73 

Then, if the other arts suffer a temporary paralysis, and 
notwithstanding the many proofs of talent and genius, we con- 
sider that is the case with architecture, painting, and sculp- 
ture, music is not only thoroughly vital, but in a state of 
rapid development. The last hundred years have witnessed 
a succession of triumphs in this art, the removal of obstruc- 
tions, the transcending of limits, and the opening new realms 
of thought, to an extent that makes the infinity of promise 
and hope very present with us. And take notice that the 
prominent means of excellence now are not in those ways 
which give form to thought already existent, but which open 
new realms to thought. Those who live most with the life 
of their age, feel that it is one not only beautiful, positive, full 
of suggestion, but vast, flowing, of infinite promise. It is dy- 
namics that interest us now, and from electricity and music 
we borrow the best illustrations of what we know. 

Let no one doubt that these grand efforts at synthesis are 
capable of as strict analysis. Indeed, it is wonderful with 
what celerity and precision the one process follows up the 
other. 

Of this great life which has risen from the stalk and the 
leaf into bud, and will in the course of this age be in full 
flower, Beethoven is the last and greatest exponent. His 
music is felt, by every soul whom it affects, to be the expla- 
nation of the past and the prophecy of the future. It con- 
tains the thoughts of the time. A dynasty of great men pre- 
ceded him, each of whom made conquests and accumulated 
treasures which prepared the way for his successor. Bach, 
Handel, Hadyn, Mozart, were corner-stones of the glorious 
temple. Who shall succeed Beethoven ? A host of musi- 
cians, full of talent, even of genius, live now he is dead ; but 
the greatest among them is confessed by all men to be but of 
Lilliputian size compared with this demigod. Indeed, it 
should be so ! As copious draughts of soul have been given 
to the earth, as she can quaff for a century or more. Disci- 
7 



74 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

pies and critics must follow, to gather up the gleanings of the 
golden grain. 

It is observable as an earnest of the great Future which 
opens for this country, that such a genius is so easily and so 
much appreciated here, by those who have not gone through 
the steps that prepared the way for him in Europe. He is 
felt, because he expresses, in full tones, the thoughts that lie 
at the heart of our own existence, though we have not found 
means to stammer them as yet. To those who have obtained 
some clew to all this, — and their number is daily on the in- 
crease, — this biography of Beethoven will be very interesting. 
They will here find a picture of the great man, as he looked 
and moved in actual life, though imperfectly painted, — as by 
one who saw the figure from too low a stand-point. 

It will require the united labors of a constellation of minds 
to paint the portrait of Beethoven. That of his face, a- seen 
in life, prefixed to these volumes, is better than any we have 
seen. It bears tokens of the force, the grandeur, the gro- 
tesqueness of his genius, and at the same time .-hows the 
melancholy that came to him from the great misfortune of 
his life — his deafness ; and the affectionateness of his deep 
heart. 

Moscheles thus gives a very pleasing account of his first 
cognizance of Beethoven : — 

" I had been placed under the guidance and tuition of 
Dionysius Weber, the founder and present director of the 
Prague Musical Conservatory ; and he, fearing that in my 
eagerness to read new music, I might injure the systematic 
development of my piano-forte playing, prohibited the library, 
a circulating musical library, and in a plan for my musical 
education which he laid before my parents, made it an ex- 
press condition that for three years I should study no other 
authors but Mozart, Clemente, and S. Bach. I must co 
however, that in spite of such prohibition, I visited the library, 
gaining access to it through my pocket money. It was about 



BEETHOVEN. 75 

this time that I learned from some schoolfellows that a young 
composer had appeared in Vienna, who wrote the oddest stuff 
possible, such as no one could either play or understand — 
crazy music, in opposition to all rule ; and that this compo- 
ser's name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to sat- 
isfy my curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found 
there Beethoven's ' Sonate Pathetique.' This was in the 
year 1804. My pocket money would not suffice for the pur- 
chase of it, so I secretly copied it. The novelty of its style 
was so attractive to me, and I became so enthusiastic in my 
admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to mention my 
new acquisition to my master, who reminded me of his injunc- 
tion, and warned me not to play or study any eccentric pro- 
ductions until I had based my style upon more solid models. 
Without, however, minding his injunction, I seized upon the 
piano-forte works of Beethoven as they successively ap- 
peared, and in them found a solace and delight such as no 
other composer afforded me. 

"In the year 1809, my studies with my master, "Weber, 
closed ; and being then also fatherless, I chose Vienna for 
my residence, to work out my future musical career. Above 
all, I. longed to see and become acquainted with that man who 
had exercised so powerful an influence over my whole being ; 
whom, though I scarcely understood, I blindly worshipped. 
I learned that Beethoven was most difficult of access, and 
would admit no pupil but Hies ; and for a long time my anx- 
iety to see him remained ungratified. In the year 1810, how- 
ever, the longed-for opportunity presented itself. I happened 
to be one morning in the music shop of Domenico Artaria. 
who had just been publishing some of my early attempts at 
composition, when a man entered with short and hasty steps, 
and gliding through the circle of ladies and professors assem- 
bled on business, or talking over musical matters, without 
looking up, as though he wished to pass unnoticed, made his 
way direct for Artaria's private office at the bottom of the 



76 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

shop. Presently Artaria called me in, and said, * This is 
Beethoven,' — and to the composer, ' This is the youth of 
whom I have been speaking to you.' Beethoven gave me a 
friendly nod, and said he had just been hearing a favorable 
account of me. To some modest and humble expressions 
which I stammered forth he made no reply, and seemed to 
wish to break oiF the conversation. I stole away with a 
greater longing for that which I had sought, than before this 
meeting, thinking to myself, ' Am I then, indeed, such a no- 
body that he could not put one musical question to me ? nor 
express one wish to know who had been my master, or 
whether I had any acquaintance with his works ? ' My only 
satisfactory mode of explaining the matter, and comforting 
myself for the omission, was in Beethoven's tendency to deaf- 
ness ; for I had seen Artaria speaking close to his ear. But 
I made up my mind that the more I was excluded from the 
private intercourse which I so earnestly coveted, the closer 
I would follow Beethoven in all the productions of his 
mind." 

If Moscheles had never seen more of Beethoven, how re- 
joiced he would have been on reading his pathetic expres- 
sions recorded in those volumes, as to the misconstructions 
he knew his fellow-men must put on conduct caused by his 
calamity, at having detected the true cause of coldness in 
his own instance, and that no mean suggestions of offended 
vanity made him false to the genius, because repelled by the 
man ! 

Moscheles did see him further, and learned a great deal 
from this intercourse, though it never became intimate. He 
closes with these excellent remarks : — 

" My feelings with respect to Beethoven's music have 
undergone no variation, save to become warmer. In my first 
half score of years of acquaintance with his works, he was 
repulsive to me, as well as attractive. In each of them, while 
I felt my mind fascinated by the prominent idea, and my en- 



BEETHOVEN. 



77 



thusiasm kindled by the flashes of his genius, his unlojked- 
for episodes, shrill dissonances, and bold modulations o-ave 
me an unpleasant sensation. But how soon did I become 
reconciled to them ! all that had appeared hard I soon found 
indispensable. The gnome-like pleasantries, which at first 
appeared too distorted, the stormy masses of sound which I 
found too chaotic, I have in after times learned to love. But 
while retracting my early critical exceptions, I must still 
maintain as my creed that eccentricities like those of Beet- 
hoven are reconcilable with his works alone, and are dangerous 
models to other composers, many of whom have been wrecked 
in their attempts at imitation." 

No doubt the peculiarities of Beethoven are inimitable, 
though as great would be as welcome in a mind of equal 
greatness. The natural office of such a genius is to rouse 
others to a use and knowledge of their own faculties ; never 
to induce imitation of its own individuality. 

As an instance of the justice and undoubting clearness of 
suc-h a mind, as to its own methods, take the following anec- 
dote from Beethoven's " Pupil Ries " : — 

" All the initiated must be interested in the striking fact 
which occurred respecting one of Beethoven's last solo so- 
natas, (in B major, with the great fugue, Op. 106,) a sonata 
which has forty-one pages of print. Beethoven had sent it to 
me, to London, for sale, that it might appear there at the 
same time as in Germany. The engraving was completed, 
and I in daily expectation of the letter naming the day of 
publication. This arrived at last, but with this extraordinary 
request : ' Prefix the following two notes, as a first bar, to the 
beginning of the adagio.' This adagio has from nine to ten 
pages of print. I own the thought struck me involuntarily 
that all might not be right with my dear old master, a rumor 
to that effect having often been spread. What ! add two notes 
to a composition already worked out and out, and completed 
six months ago ? But my astonishment was yet to be height- 
7* 



78 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

ened by the effect of these two notes. Never could such be 
found &gain — so striking — so important; no, not even if 
contemplated at the very beginning of the composition. I 
would advise every true lover of the art to play this ada- 
gio first without, and then with these two notes which now 
form the first bar, and I have no doubt he will share in my 
opinion." 

No instance could more forcibly show how in the case of 
Beethoven, as in that of other transcendent geniuses, the cry 
of insanity is raised by vulgar minds on witnessing extraor- 
dinary manifestations of power. Such geniuses perceive results 
so remote, are alive to combinations so subtle, that common 
men cannot rise high enough to see why they think or do as they 
do, and settle the matter easily to their own satisfaction, cry- 
ing, " He is mad " — "He hath a devil." Genius perceives 
the efficacy of slight signs of thought, and loves best the sim- 
plest symbols ; coarser minds demand coarse work, long prep- 
arations, long explanations. 

But genius heeds them not, but fills the atmosphere with 
irresistible purity, till they also are pervaded by the delicate 
influence, which, too subtile for their ears and eyes, enters with 
the air they breathe, or through the pores of the skin. 

The life of a Beethoven is written in his works ; and all 
that can be told of his life beside, is but as marginal notes on 
that broad page. Yet since we have these notes, it is pleas- 
ant to have them in harmony with the page. The acts and 
words of Beethoven are what we should expect, — noble, 
leonine, impetuous. — yet tender. His faults are the faults of 
one so great that he found few paths wide enough for his 
tread, and knew not how to moderate it. They are not faults 
in themselves, but only in relation to the men who surrounded 
him. Among his peers he would not have had faults. As it 
is, they hardly deserve the name. His acts were generally 
great and benignant ; only in transports of sudden passion at 
what he thought base did he ever injure any one. If he 



BEETHOVEN. 79 

found himself mistaken, he could not humble himself enough, 
— but far outwent, in his contrition, what was due to those 
whom he had offended. So it is apt to be with magnanimous 
and tender natures ; they will humble themselves in a way 
that those of a coarser or colder make think shows weakness 
or want of pride. But they do so because a little discord and 
a little wrong is as painful to them as a great deal to others. 

In one of his letters to a young friend, Beethoven thus 
magnanimously confesses his errors : — 

" I could not converse with you and yours with that peace 
of mind which I could have desired, for the late wretched 
altercation was hovering before me, showing me my own des- 
picable conduct. But so it was ; and what would I not give 
could I obliterate from the page of my life this last action, so 
degrading to my character, and so unlike my usual pro- 
ceedings ! " 

It seems this action of his was not of importance in the 
eyes of others. Of the causes which acted upon him at such 
times he gives intimations in another letter. 

" I had been wrought into this burst of passion by many 
an unpleasant circumstance of an earlier date. I have the 
gift of concealing and restraining my irritability on many sub- 
jects ; but if I happen to be touched at any time when I am 
more than usually susceptible of anger, I burst forth more 
violently than any one else. B. has doubtless most excellent 
qualities, but he thinks himself utterly without faults, and yet 
is most open to blame for those for which he censures others. 
He has a littleness of mind which I have held in contempt 
since my infancy." 

As a correspondent example of the manner in which true 
greatness apologizes for its errors,, we must quote a letter, 
lately made public, from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Locke. 

" Sir : Being of opinion that you endeavored to embroil 
me with women, and by other means, I was so much affected 



80 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

with it as that, when one told me you were sickly, and would 
not live, I answered, ' 'Twere better if you were dead.' I 
desire } r ou to forgive me this uncharitableness, for I am now 
satisfied that what you have done is just, and I beg your par- 
don for having had hard thoughts of you for it, and for rep- 
resenting that you struck at the root of morality in a princi- 
ple you laid down in your book of ideas, and designed to pursue 
in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I beg your 
pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to 
sell me an office, or to embroil me. 

" I am your most humble and unfortunate servant, 

"Isaac Newton." 

And this letter, observe, was quoted as proof of insanity in 
Newton. Locke, however, shows by his reply that he did not 
think the power of full sincerity and elevation above self-love 
proved a man to be insane. 

At a happy period Beethoven thus unveils the generous 
sympathies of his heart. 

" My compositions are well paid, and I may say I have 
more orders than I can well execute ; six or seven publishers, 
and more, being ready to take any of my works. I need no 
longer submit to being bargained with ; I ask my terms, and 
am paid. You see this is an excellent thing ; as, for instance, 
I see a friend in want, and my purse does not at the moment 
permit me to assist him ; I have but to sit down and write, 
and my friend is no longer in need." 

Some additional particulars are given, in the letters col- 
lected by Moscheles, of the struggles of his mind during the 
coming on of deafness. This calamity, falling upon the great- 
est genius of his time, in the prime of manhood, — a calamity 
which threatened to destroy not only all enjoyment of life, 
but the power of using the vast treasure with which he had 
been endowed for the use of all men, — casts common ills so 
into the shade that they can scarcely be ^e^n. Who dares 



BEETHOVEN. 81 

complain, since Beethoven could resign himself, to such an ill 
at such a time as this ? 

" This beautiful country of mine, what was my lot in 
it? The hope of a happy futurity. This might now be 
realized if I were freed from my affliction. O, freed from 
that, I should compass the world ! I feel it — my youth is 
but beginning ; have I not been hitherto but a sickly crea- 
ture ? My physical powers have for some time been mate- 
rially increasing — those of my mind likewise. I feel my- 
self nearer and nearer the mark ; I feel but cannot describe 
it ; this alone is the vital principle of your Beethoven. No 
rest for me : I know of none but in sleep, and I grieve at 
having to sacrifice to that more time than I have hitherto 
deemed necessary. Take but one half of my disease from 
me, and I will return to you a matured and accomplished 
man, renewing the ties of our friendship ; for you shall see me 
as happy as I may be in this sublunary world ; not as a suf- 
ferer ; no, that would be more than I could bear ; I will 
blunt the sword of fate ; it shall not utterly destroy me. How 
beautiful it is to live a thousand lives in one ! No ; I am 
not made for a retired life — I feel it." 

He did blunt the sword of fate ; he did live a thousand 
lives in one; but that sword had power to inflict a deep and 
poisoned wound ; those thousand lives cost him the pangs of 
a thousand deaths. He, born for perpetual conquest, was con- 
demned through life to " resignation." Let any man, dis- 
posed to complain of his own ills, read the " Will " of Beet- 
hoven ; and see if he dares speak of himself above a whisper, 
after. 

The matter of interest new to us in this English book is in 
notes and appendix. Schindler's biography, whose plain and 
naive style is fit for the subject, is ironed out and plaited 
afresh to suit the " genteel" English, in this translation. 
Elsewhere we have given in brief the strong lineaments and 



82 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

piquant anecdotes from this biography ; * here there is not 
room : smooth and shorn as it is, we wish the translation 
might be reprinted here. 

We may give, at parting, two directions for the study of 
Beethoven's genius and the perusal of his biography in two 
sayings of his own. For the biography, " The limits have 
never yet been discovered which genius and industry could 
not transcend." For the music, " From the depths of the 
soul brought forth, she (Poesy) can only by the depths of 
the soul be received or understood." 

[* See article on Beethoven, in Margaret's volume, entitled " Art, Litera- 
ture, and the Drama." — Ed.] 



BROWN'S NOVELS* 

We rejoice to see these reprints of Brown's novels, as we 
have long been ashamed that one who ought to be the pride 
of the country, and who is, in the higher qualities of the mind, 
so far in advance of our other novelists, should have become 
almost inaccessible to the public. 

It has been the custom to liken Brown to Godwin. But 
there was no imitation, no second hand in the matter. They 
were congenial natures, and whichever had come first might 
have lent an impulse to the other. Either mind might have 
been conscious of the possession of that peculiar vein of ore, 
without thinking of working it for the mint of the world, till 
the other, led by accident, or overflow of feeling, showed him 
how easy it was to put the reveries of his solitary hours into 
words, and upon paper, for the benefit of his fellow-men. 

" My mind to me a kingdom is." 

Such a man as Brown or Godwin has a right to say that. 
Their mind is no scanty, turbid rill, rejoicing to be daily fed 
from a thousand others, or from the clouds. Its plenteous 
source rushes from a high mountain between bulwarks of stone. 
Its course, even and full, keeps ever green its banks, and 
affords the means of life and joy to a million gliding shapes, 
that fill its deep waters, and twinkle above its golden sands. 

Life and Joy ! Yes, Joy ! These two have been called 
the dark Masters, because they disclose the twilight recesses of 

* Ormond, or the Secret "Witness ; "Wieland, or the Transformation ; by 
Charles Brockden Brown. 

(83) 



84 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

the human heart. Yet the gravest page in the history of such 
men is joy, compared with the mixed, shallow, uncertain pleas- 
ures of vulgar minds. Joy! because they were all alive, and 
fulfilled the purposes of being. No sham, no imitation, no con- 
vention deformed or veiled their native lineaments, or checked 
the use of their natural force. All alive themselves, they un- 
derstood that there is no happiness without truth, no perception 
of it without real life. Unlike most men, existence was to them 
not a tissue of words and seemings, but a substantial possession. 

Born Hegelians, without the pretensions of science, they 
sought God in their own consciousness, and found him. The 
heart, because it saw itself so fearfully and wonderfully made, 
did not disown its Maker. With the highest idea of the dig- 
nity, power, and beauty of which human nature is capable, 
they had courage to see by what an oblique course it pro- 
ceeds, yet never lose faith that it would reach its destined 
aim. Thus their darkest disclosures are not hobgoblin shows, 
but precious revelations. 

Brown is great as ever human writer was in showing the 
self-sustaining force of which a lonely mind is capable. He 
takes one person, makes him brood like the bee, and extract 
from the common life before him all its sweetness, its bitter- 
ness, and its nourishment. 

We say makes him, but it increases our own interest in 
Brown, that, a prophet in this respect of a better era, he has 
usually placed this thinking, royal mind in the body of a 
woman. This personage, too, is always feminine, both in her 
character and circumstances, but a conclusive proof that the 
term feminine is not a synonyme for weak. Constantin. Clara 
"Wieland, have loving hearts, graceful and plastic natures, but 
they have also noble, thinking minds, full of resource, con- 
stancy, courage. The Marguerite of Godwin, no less, is all 
refinement and the purest tenderness ; but -he is also the soul 
of honor, capable of deep discernment, and of acting in con- 
formity with the inferences she draws. The Man of Brown 



BKOWN S NOVELS. 85 

and Godwin has not eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowl- 
edge, and been driven to sustain himself by the sweat of his 
brow for nothing, but has learned the structure and laws of 
things, and become a being, natural, benignant, various, and 
desirous of supplying the loss of innocence by the attainment 
of virtue. So his Woman need not be quite so weak as Eve, 
the slave of feeling or of flattery ; she also has learned to 
guide her helm amid the storm across the troubled waters. 

The horrors which mysteriously beset these persons, and 
against which, so far as outward facts go, they often strive in 
vain, are but a representation of those powers permitted to 
work in the same way throughout the affairs of this world. 
Their demoniacal attributes only represent a morbid state of 
the intellect, gone to excess from want of balance with the 
other powers. There is an intellectual as well as a physical 
drunkenness, and which, no less, impels to crime. Carwin, 
urged on to use his ventriloquism till the presence of such a 
strange agent wakened the seeds of fanaticism in the breast 
of Wiefcmd, is in a state no more foreign to nature than that 
of the wretch executed last week, who felt himself drawn as 
by a spell to murder his victim, because he had thought of 
her money and the pleasures it might bring him, till the feel- 
ing possessed his brain that hurls the gamester to ruin. The 
victims of such agency are like the soldier of the Rio Grande, 
who, both legs shot off, and his life-blood rushing out with 
every pulse, replied serenely to his pitying comrades, that '"he 
had now that for which the soldier enlisted." The end of the 
drama is not in this world, and the fiction which rounds otf 
the whole to harmony and felicity before the curtain falls, 
Bins against truth, and deludes the reader. The Nelsons of 
the human race are all the more exposed to the assaults of 
Fate, that they are decorated with the badges of well-earned 
glory. Who but feels as they fall in death, or rise again to 
a mutilated existence, that the end is not yet ? Who, that 
thinks, but must feel that the recompense is, where Brown 
8 



86 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

places it, in the accumulation of mental treasure, in the severe 
assay by fire that leaves the gold pure to be used some time 
— somewhere ? 

Brown, — man of the brooding eye, the teeming brain, the 
deep and fervent heart, — if thy country prize thee not, and 
had almost lost thee out of sight, it is because her heart is made 
shallow and cold, her eye dim, by the pomp of circumstance, 
the love of gross outward gain. She cannot long continue 
thus, for it takes a great deal of soul to keep a huge body 
from disease and dissolution. As there is more soul, thou 
wilt be more sought ; and many will yet sit down with thy 
Constantia to the meal and water on which she sustained 
her full and thoughtful existence, who could not endure the 
ennui of aldermanic dinners, or find any relish in the im- 
itation of French cookery. To-day many will read the 
words, and some have a cup large enough to receive the 
spirit, before it is lost in the sand on which their feet are 
planted. 

Brown's high standard of the delights of intellectual com- 
munion and of friendship, correspond with the fondest hopes 
of early days. But in the relations of real life, at present, 
there is rarely more than one of the parties ready for such 
intercourse as he describes. On the one side there will be 
dryness, want of perception, or variety, a stupidity unable to 
appreciate life's richest boon when offered to its grasp ; and 
the finer nature is doomed to retrace its steps, unhappy as 
those who, having force to raise a spirit, cannot retain or 
make it substantial, and stretch out their arms only to bring 
them back empty to the breast. 

We were glad to see these reprints, but sorry to see them 
so carelessly done. Under the cheap system, the carel<—- 
ness in printing and translating grows to a greater excess day 
by day. Please, Public, to remonstrate ; else very soon all 
your books will be offered for two shillings apiece, and none 
of them in a fit state to be read. 



EDGAR A. POE.* 

Mr. Poe throws down the gauntlet in his preface by what 
he says of " the paltry compensations, or more paltry com- 
mendations, of mankind." Some champion might be expected 
to start up from the " somewhat sizable " class embraced, or, 
more properly speaking, boxed on the ear, by this defiance, 
who might try whether the sting of Criticism was as indiffer- 
ent to this knight of the pen as he professes its honey to be. 

Were there such a champion, gifted with acumen to dissect, 
and a swift-glancing wit to enliven the operation, he could 
find no more legitimate subject, no fairer game, than Mr. Poe, 
who has wielded the weapons of criticism without relenting, 
whether with the dagger he rent and tore the garment in 
which some favored Joseph had pranked himself, secure of 
honor in the sight of all men, or whether with uplifted tomahawk 
he rushed upon the new-born children of some hapless genius, 
who had fancied, and persuaded his friends to fancy, that they 
were beautiful, and worthy a long and honored life. A large 
band of these offended dignitaries and aggrieved parents must 
be on the watch for a volume of " Poems by Edgar A. Poe," 
ready to cut, rend, and slash in turn, and hoping to see his 
own Raven left alone to prey upon the slaughter of which it 
is the herald. 

Such joust and tournament we look to see. and, indeed, 
have some stake in the matter, so far as we have friends whose 
wrongs cry aloud for the avenger. Natheless we could not 



* The Raven and other Poems, by Edgar A. Poe, 1845. 

(87) 



88 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

take part in the melee, except to join the crowd of lookers-on 
in the cry " heaven speed the right ! " 

Early we read that fable of Apollo who rewarded the critic, 
who had painfully winnowed the wheat, — with the chaff for 
his pains. We joined the gentle Affirmative School, and have 
confidence that if we indulge ourselves chiefly with the appre- 
ciation of good qualities, Time will take care of the faults. For 
Time holds a strainer like that used in the diamond mines — have 
but patience and the water and gravel will all pass through, 
and only the precious stones be left. Yet we are not blind 
to the uses of severe criticism, and of just censure, especially 
in a time and place so degraded by venal and indiscriminate 
praise as the present. That unholy alliance ; that shameless 
sham, whose motto is, 

" Caw me 
And I'll caw thee ; M 

that system of mutual adulation and organized puff which 
was carried to such perfection in the time, and may be seen 
drawn to the life in the correspondence, of Miss Hannah 
More, is fully represented in our day and generation. We 
see that it meets a counter-agency, from the league of Truth- 
tellers, few, but each of them mighty as Fingal or any other 
hero of the sort. Let such tell the whole truth, as well as 
nothing but the truth, but let their sternness be in the spirit 
of Love. Let them seek to understand the purpose and scope 
of an author, his capacity as well as his fulfilments, and how 
his faults are made to grow by the same sunshine that acts 
upon his virtues, for this is the case with talents no less than 
with character. The rich field requires frequent and careful 
weeding; frequent, lest the weeds exhaust the soil; care- 
ful, lest the flowers and grain be pulled up along with the 
weeds. 

It has often been our lot to share the mistake of Gil 
Bias with regard to the Archbishop. We have taken people 
at their word, and while rejoicing that women could bear 



EDGAR A. POE. 89 

neglect without feeling mean pique, and that authors, rising 
above self-love, could show candor about their works, and 
magnanimously meet both justice and injustice, we have been 
rudely awakened from our dream, and found that chanticleer, 
who crowed so bravely, showed himself at last but a dunghill 
fowl. Yet Heaven grant we never become too worldly-wise 
thus to trust a generous word, and we surely are not so yet, 
for we believe Mr. Poe to be sincere when he says, — 

" In defence of my own taste, it is incumbent upon me to 
say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the 
public or very creditable to myself. Events not to be con- 
trolled have prevented me from making, at any time, any 
serious effort, in what, under happier circumstances, would 
have been the field of my choice." 

We believe Mr. Poe to be sincere in this declaration ; if 
he is, we respect him ; if otherwise, we do not. Such things 
should never be said unless in hearty earnest. If in earnest, 
they are honorable pledges ; if not, a pitiful fence and foil of 
vanity. Earnest or not, the words are thus far true ; the pro- 
ductions in this volume indicate a power to do something far 
better. With the exception of the Raven, which seems in- 
tended chiefly to show the writer's artistic skill, and is in its 
way a rare and finished specimen, they are all fragments — 
fyttes upon the lyre, almost all of which leave a something 
to desire or demand. This is not the case, however, with 
these lines : — 

To one in Paradise. 

Thou wast nil that to me, love, 

For which my soul did pine — 
A green isle in the sea, love, 

A fountain and a shrine, 
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, 

And all the flowers were mine. 
6* 



90 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Ah, dream too bright to last ! 

Ah, starry Hope ! that didst arise 
But to be overcast ! 

A voice from out the Future cries, 
" On ! on ! " — but o'er the Past 

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies 
Mute, motionless, aghast ! 

For, alas ! alas ! with me 

The light of life is o'er ! 

No more — no more — no more 
(Such language holds the solemn sea 

To the sands upon the shore) 
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, 

Or the stricken eagle soar ! 

And all my days are trances, 

And all my nightly dreams 
Are where thy dark eye glances, 

And where thy footstep gleams — 
In what ethereal dances, 

By what eternal streams. 

The poems breathe a passionate sadness, relieved some- 
times by touches very lovely and tender : — 

" Amid the earnest woes 

That crowd around my earthly path 

(Drear path, alas ! where grows 

Not even one lonely rose.") * * * 



" For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies, 
The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes — 
The life still there, upon her hair — the death upon her eyes.' 



EDGAR A. POE. 91 

This kind of beauty is especially conspicuous, even rising 
into dignity, in the poem called the Haunted Palace. 

The imagination of this writer rarely expresses itself in 
pronounced forms, but rather in a sweep of images, thronging 
and distant like a procession of moonlight clouds on the 
horizon, but like them characteristic and harmonious one with 
another, according to their office. 

The descriptive power is greatest when it takes a shape 
not unlike an incantation, as in the first part of the Sleeper, 
where 

" I stand beneath the mystic moon ; 
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, 
Exhales from out a golden rim, 
And, softly dripping, drop by drop, 
Upon the quiet mountain top, 
Steals drowsily and musically 
Into the universal valley." 

Why universal ? — " resolve me that, Master Moth." 
And farther on, "the lily lolls upon the wave." 
This word lolls, often made use of in these poems, presents 
a vulgar image to our thought ; we know not how it is to that 
of others. 

The lines which follow, about the open window, are highly 
poetical. So is the Bridal Ballad in its power of suggest- 
ing a whole tribe and train of thoughts and pictures, by few 
and simple touches. 

The poems' written in youth, written, indeed, we under- 
stand, in childhood, before the author was ten years old, are 
a great psychological curiosity. Is it the delirium of a pre- 
maturely excited brain that causes such a rapture of words ? 
"What is to be gathered from seeing the future so fully anti- 
cipated in the germ ? The passions are not (infrequently ,/eft 
in their full shock, if not in their intensity, at eight or nine 
years old, but here they are reflected upon : — 



92 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

" Sweet was their death — with them to die was rife 
With the last ecstasy of satiate life." 

The scenes from Politian are done with clear, sharp 
strokes ; the power is rather metaphysical than dramatic. 
We must repeat what we have heretofore said, that we could 
wish to see Mr. Poe engaged in a metaphysical romance. 
He needs a sustained flight and far range to show what his 
powers really are. Let us have from him the analysis of the 
Passions, with their appropriate Fates ; let us have his specu- 
lations clarified ; let him intersperse dialogue or poem, as the 
occasion prompts, and give us something really good and 
strong, firmly wrought, and fairly blazoned. 



ALFIERI AND CELLINI* 

These two publications have come to hand during the last 
month — a cheering gleam upon the winter of our discontent, 
as we saw the flood of bad translations of worse books which 
swelled upon the country. 

We love our country well. The many false deeds and low 
thoughts ; the devotion to interest ; the forgetfulness of prin- 
ciple ; the indifference to high and noble sentiment, which 
have, in so many ways, darkened her history for some years 
back, have not made us despair of her yet fulfilling the great 
destiny whose promise rose, like a star, only some half a cen- 
tury ago upon the hopes of the world. 

Should that star be forsaken by its angel, and those hopes 
set finally in clouds of shame, the church which we had built 
out of the ruins of the ancient time must fall to the ground. 
This church seemed a model of divine art. It contained a 
labyrinth which, when threaded by aid of the clew of Faith, 
presented, re-viewed from its centre, the most admirable har- 
mony and depth of meaning in its design, and comprised in 
its decorations all the symbols of permanent interest of which 
the mind of man has made use for the benefit of man. Such 
was to be our church, a church not made with hands, catholic, 
universal, all whose stones should be living stones, its officials 
the cherubim of Love and Knowledge, its worship wiser and 
purer action than has before been known to men. To such 
a church men do indeed constitute the state, and men indeed 

* The Autobiography of Alfieri, translated by C. E. Lester. Memoirs of 
Benvenuto Cellini, translated by Roscoe. 

(93) 



94 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

we hoped from the American church and state, men so truly 
human that they could not live while those made in their own 
likeness were hound down to the condition of brutes. 

Should such hopes be baffled, should such a church fall in 
the building, such a state find no realization except to the 
eye of the poet, God would still be in the world, and surely 
guide each bird, that can be patient, on the wing to its home 
at last. But expectations so noble, which find so broad a 
basis in the past, which link it so harmoniously with the 
future, cannot lightly be abandoned. The same Power leads 
by a pillar of cloud as by a pillar of fire — the Power that 
deemed even Moses worthy only of a distant view of the 
Promised Land. 

And to those who cherish such expectations rational edu- 
cation, considered in various ways and bearings, must be the 
one great topic of interest; an enterprise in which the hum- 
blest service is precious and honorable to any who can in- 
spire its soul. Our thoughts anticipate with eager foresight 
the race that may grow up from this amalgamation of all 
races of the world which our situation induces. It was the 
pride and greatness of ancient nations to keep their blood 
unmixed ; but it must be ours to be willing to mingle, to 
accept in a generous spirit what each clime and race has to 
offer us. 

It is, indeed, the case that much diseased substance is 
offered to form this new body ; and if there be not in our- 
selves a nucleus, a heart of force and purity to assimilate these 
strange and various materials into a very high form of or- 
ganic life, they must needs induce one distorted, corrupt, and 
degraded beyond the example of other times and places. 
There will be no medium about it. Our grand scene of 
action demands grandeur and purity; lacking these, one must 
suffer from so base failure in proportion to the success that 
should have been. 

It would be the worthiest occupation of mind to ascertain 



ALFIERI AND CELLINI. 95 

the conditions propitious for this meeting of the nations in 
their new home, and to provide preventions for obvious dan- 
gers that attend it. It would be occupation for which the 
broadest and deepest knowledge of human nature in its men- 
tal, moral, and bodily relations, the noblest freedom from 
prejudice, with the finest discrimination as to differences and 
relations, directed and enlightened by a prophetic sense as to 
what Man is designed by God to become, would all be needed 
to fit the thinker. Yet some portion of these qualities, or of 
some of these qualities, if accompanied by earnestness and 
aspiration, may enable any one to offer useful suggestions. 
The mass of ignorance and selfishness is such, that no grain 
of leaven must be despised. 

And as the men of all countries come hither to find a 
home, and become parts of a new life, so do the books of all 
countries gravitate towards this new centre. Copious infu- 
sions from all quarters mingle daily with the new thought 
which is to grow into American mind, and develop American 
literature. 

As every ship brings us foreign teachers, a knowledge of 
living contemporary tongues must in the course of fifty years 
become the commonest attainment. There exists no doubt 
in the minds of those who can judge, that the German, 
French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese tongues might, by 
familiar instruction and an intelligent method, be taught with 
perfect ease during the years of childhood, so that the child 
would have as distinct a sense of their several natures, and 
nearly as much expertness in their use, as in his own. The 
higher uses of such knowledge can, of course, be expected 
only in a more advanced state of the faculties ; but it is pity 
that the acquaintance with the medium of thought should be 
deferred to a period when the mind is sufficiently grown to 
bend its chief attention on the thoughts themselves. Much 
of the most precious part of short human lives is now wasted 
from an ignorance of what might easily be done for children, 



96 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

and without taking from them the time they need for common 
life, play, and bodily growth, more than at present. 

Meanwhile the English begins to vie with the German and 
French literature in the number, though not in the goodness, 
of the translations from other languages. The indefatigable 
Germans can translate, and do other things too ; so that gen- 
iuses often there apply themselves to the work as an amuse- 
ment : even the all-employed Goethe has translated one of 
the books before us, (Memoirs of Cellini.) But in English 
we know but of one, Coleridge's Wallenstein, where the 
reader will feel the electric current undiminished by the 
medium through which it comes to him. And then the prof- 
ligate abuse of the power of translation has been unparal- 
leled, whether in the choice of books or the carelessness in 
disguising those that were good in a hideous mask. No 
falsehood can be worse than this of deforming the expression 
of a great man's thoughts, of corrupting that form which he 
has watched, and toiled and suffered to make beautiful and 
true. We know no falsehood that should call a more painful 
blush to the cheek of one engaged in it. 

We have no narrowness in our view of the contents of 
such books. We are not afraid of new standards and new 
examples. Only give enough of them, variety enough, and 
from well-intentioned, generous 'minds. America can choose 
what she wants, if she has sufficient range of choice ; and if 
there is any real reason, any deep root in the tastes and opin- 
ions she holds at present, she will not lightly yield them. 
Only give her what is good of its kind. Her hope is not in 
ignorance, but in knowledge. We are, indeed, very fond of 
range, and if there is check, there should be countercheck ; 
and in this view we are delighted to see these great Italians 
domesticated here. We have had somewhat too much of the 
French and Germans of late. We value unchangeably our 
sparkling and rapid French friend ; still more the searching, 
honest, and, in highest sense, visionary German genius. But 



ALFIERI AND CELLINI. 97 

there is not on earth, and, we dare to say it, will not be again, 
genius like that of Italy, or that can compare with it, in its 
own way. 

Italy and Greece were alike in this ; those sunny skies 
ripened their fruits perfectly. The oil and honey of Greece, 
the wine of Italy, not only suggest, but satisfy. There we 
find fulfilment, elsewhere great achievement only. 

O, acute, cautious, calculating Yankee ; O, graceful, witty, 
hot-blooded, flimsy Southron ; and thou, man of the West, 
going ahead too fast to pick up a thought or leave a flower 
upon thy path, — look at these men with their great fiery pas- 
sions, but will and intellect still greater and stronger, per- 
fectly sincere, from a contempt of falsehood. If they had 
acted wrong, they said and felt that they had, and that it was 
base and hateful in them. They were sagacious, as children 
are, not from calculation, but because the fine instincts of 
nature were unspoiled in them. I speak now of Alfieri and 
Cellini. Dante had all their instinctive greatness and deep- 
seated fire, with the reflective and creative faculties besides, 
to an extent of which they never dreamed. 

He who reads these biographies may take them from sev- 
eral points of view. As pictures of manners, as sincere tran- 
scripts of the men and their times, they are not and could not 
be surpassed. That truth which Eousseau sought so pain- 
fully and vainly by self-brooding, subtle analysis, they at- 
tained without an effort. Why they felt they cared little, but 
what they felt they surely knew ; and where a fly or worm 
has injured the peach, its passage is exactly marked, so that 
you are sure the rest is fair and sound. Both as physiologi- 
cal and psychical histories, they are full of instruction. In 
Alfieri, especially, the nervous disease generated in the frame 
by any uncongenial tension of the brain, the periodical crises 
in his health, the manner in which his accesses of passion 
came upon him, afford infinite suggestion to one who has an 
eye for the circumstances which fashion the destiny of man. 
9 



98 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Let the physician compare the furies of Alfieri with the silent 
rages of Byron, and give the mother and pedagogue the light 
in which they are now wholly wanting, showing how to treat 
such noble plants in the early stages of growth. We think 
the " hated cap " would not be put a second time on the head 
so easily diseased. 

The biography of Cellini, it is commonly said, is more 
interesting than any romance. It is a romance, with the 
character of the hero fully brought out. Cellini lived in all 
the fulness of inward vigor, all the variety of outward adven- 
ture, and passed through all the signs of the Zodiac, in his 
circling course, occasionally raising a little vapor from the 
art magic. He was really the Orlando Furioso turned Gold- 
smith, and Angelicas and all the Peers of France joined in 
the show. However, he never lived deeply ; he had not 
time ; the creative energy turned outward too easily, and 
took those forms that still enchant the mind of Europe. 
Alfieri was very different in this. He was like the root of 
some splendid southern plant, buried beneath a heap of 
rubbish. Above him was a glorious sky, fit to develop his 
form and excite his colors ; but he was compelled to a long 
and terrible struggle to get up where he could be free to 
receive its influence. Institutions, language, family, modes 
of education, — all were unfit for him ; and perhaps no man 
was ever called to such efforts, after he had reached manly 
age, to unmake and remake himself before he could become 
what his inward aspiration craved. All this deepened his 
nature, and it was deep. It is his great force of will and the 
compression of Nature within its iron grasp, where Nature 
was so powerful and impulsive, that constitutes the charm of 
his writings. It is the man Alfieri who moves, nay, over- 
powers us, and not his writings, which have no flow nor 
plastic beauty. But we feel the vital dynamics, and imagine 
it all. 

By us Americans, if ever such we really are to be, Alfieri 



ALFIERI AND CELLINI. 99 

should be held sacred as a godfather and holy light. He 
was a harbinger of what most gives this time its char- 
acter and value. He was the friend of liberty, the friend 
of man, in the sense that Burns was — of the native no- 
bleness of man. Soiled and degraded men he hated. He 
was, indeed, a man of pitiless hatred as of boundless love, 
and he had bitter prejudices too, but they were from an- 
tipathies too strongly intertwined with his sympathies for 
any hand less powerful than that of Death to rend them 
away. 

But our space does not permit us to do any justice to such 
a life as Alfieri's. Let others read it, not from their habitual, 
but an eternal point of view, and they cannot mistake its 
purport. Some will be most touched by the storms of his 
youth, others by the exploits and conquests of his later 
years ; but all will find him, in the words of his friend 
Casella, " sculptured just as he was, lofty, strange, and ex- 
treme, not only in his natural characteristics, but in every 
work that did not seem to him unworthy of his generous 
affections. And where he went too far, it is easy to per- 
ceive his excesses always flowed from some praiseworthy 
sentiment." 

Among a crowd of thoughts suggested to the mind by re- 
perusal of this book, to us a friend of many years standing, 
we hastily note the following : — 

Alfieri knew how to be a friend, and had friends such as 
his masculine and uncompromising temper fitted him to en- 
dure and keep. He had even two or three of these noble 
friends. He was a perfect lover in delicacy of sentiment, in 
devotion, in a desire for constancy, in a high ideal, growing 
always higher, and he was, at last, happy in love. Many 
geniuses have spoken worthily of women in their works, but 
lie .-peaks of woman as she wishes to be spoken of, and de- 
clares that he met the desire of his soul realized in life. This, 
almost alone, is an instance where a great nature was perma* 



100 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

nently satisfied, and the claims of man and woman equally 
met, where one of the parties had the impatient fire of genius. 
His testimony on this subject is of so rare a sort, we must 
copy it : — 

" My fourth and last passion, fortunately for me, showed 
itself by symptoms entirely different from the three first. In 
the former, my intellect had felt little of the fires of passion ; 
but now my heart and my genius were both equally kindled, 
and if my passion was less impetuous, it became more pro- 
found and lasting. Such was the flame which by degrees 
absorbed every affection and thought of my being, and it will 
never fade away except with my life. Two months satisfied 
me that I had now found the true woman ; for, instead of 
encountering in her, as in all common women, an obstacle to 
literary glory, a hinderance to useful occupations, and a damper 
to thought, she proved a high stimulus, a pure solace, and an 
alluring example to every beautiful work. Prizing a treas- 
ure so rare, I gave myself away to her irrevocably. And 
I certainly erred not. More than twelve years have passed, 
and while I am writing this chit-chat, having reached that 
calm season when passion loses its blandishments, I cherish 
her more tenderly than ever ; and I love her just in propor- 
tion as glide from her in the lapse of time those little-es- 
teemed toll-gatherers of departing beauty. In her my soul 
is exalted, softened, and made better day by day ; and I 
will dare to say and believe she has found in me support 
and consolation." 

We have spoken of the peculiarities in Alfieri's physical 
condition. These naturally led him to seek solace in violent 
exercise ; and as in the case of Beckford and Byron, horses 
were his best friends in the hour of danger. This sort of 
man is the modern Achilles, "the tamer of horses." In what 
degree the health of Alfieri was improved, and his sympa- 
thies awakened by the society and care of these noble ani- 
mals, is very evident. Almost all persons, perhaps all that 



ALFIERI AND CELLINI. 101 

are in a natural state, need to stand in patriarchal relations 
with the animals most correspondent with their character. 
We have the highest respect for this instinct and sincere 
belief in the good it brings ; if understood, it would be 
cherished, not ridiculed. 



ITALY. — CART'S DANTE. 

Translating Dante is indeed a labor of love. It is one 
in which even a moderate degree of success is impossible. 
No great Poet can be well translated. The form of his 
thought is inseparable from his thought. The births of his 
genius are perfect beings : body and soul are in such perfect 
harmony that you cannot at all alter the one without veiling 
the other. The variation in cadence and modulation, even 
where the words are exactly rendered, takes not only from 
the form of the thought, but from the thought itself, its most 
delicate charm. Translations come to us as a message to the 
lover from the lady of his love through the lips of a confi- 
dante or menial — we are obliged to imagine what was most 
vital in the utterance. 

These difficulties, always insuperable, are accumulated a 
hundred-fold in the case of Dante, both by the extraordinary 
depth and subtlety of his thought, and his no less extraordinary 
power of concentrating its expression, till every verse is like 
a blade of thoroughly tempered steel. You might as well 
attempt to translate a glance of fire from the human eye into 
any other language — even music cannot do that. 

We think, then, that the use of Gary's translation, or any 
other, can never be to diffuse a knowledge of Dante. This is 
not in its nature diffusible ; he is one of those to whom others 
must draw near ; he cannot be brought to them. He has no 
superficial charm to cheat the reader into a belief that he 
knows him, without entrance into the same sphere. 

These translations can be of use only to the translators, as a 
means of deliberate study of the original, or to others who 

(102) 



ITALY. — CARY'S DANTE. 103 

are studying the original, and wish to compare their own ver- 
sion of doubtful passages with that of an older disciple, highly- 
qualified, both by devotion and mental development, for the 
study. 

We must say a few words as to the pedantic folly with 
which this study has been prosecuted in this country, and, Ave 
believe, in England. Not only the tragedies of Alfieri and 
the Faust of Goethe, but the Divina Commedia of Dante, — a 
work which it is not probable there are upon earth, at any 
one time, a hundred minds able to appreciate, — are turned into 
school books for little girls who have just left their hoops and 
dolls, and boys whose highest ambition it is to ride a horse 
that will run away, and brave the tutor in a college frolic. 

This is done from the idea that, in order to get acquainted 
with a foreign language, the student must read books that have 
attained the dignity of classics, and also which are " hard." 
Hard indeed it must be for the Muses to see their lyres turned 
into gridirons for the preparation of a school-girl's lunch ; 
harder still for the younglings to be called to chew and digest 
thunderbolts, in lieu of their natural bread and butter. 

Are there not " classics " enough which would not suffer by 
being put to such uses ? In Greek, Homer is a book for a 
boy ; must you give him Plato because it is harder ? Is there 
no choice among the Latins ? Are all who wrote in the Latin 
tongue equally fit for the appreciation of sixteen Yankee 
years ? In Italian, have you not Tasso, Ariosto, and other 
Avriters who have really a great deal that the immature mind 
can enjoy, without choking it with the stern politics of Alfieri, 
or piling upon a brain still soft the mountainous meanings of 
Dante ? Indeed, they are saved from suffering by the per- 
fect ignorance of all meaning in which they leave these great 
authors, fancying, to their lite-long misfortune, that they have 
read them. I have been reminded, by the remarks of my 
young friends on these subjects, of the Irish peasant, who, 
having been educated on a book prepared for his use, called 



104 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

" Reading made easy," blesses through life the kindness that 
taught him his " Radamadasy ; " and of the child who, hear- 
ing her father quote Horace, observed she " thought Latin 
was even sillier than French." 

No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up. in 
stature at least, undertake to become acquainted witli Dante. 
They get the best Italian Dictionary, all the notes they can 
find, amounting in themselves to a library, for his country- 
men have not been less external and benighted in their way 
of regarding him. Painfully they study through the book, 
seeking with anxious attention to know who Signor This is, 
and who was the cousin of Signora That, and whether any deep 
papal or anti-papal meaning was couched by Dante under 
the remark that Such-a-one wore a great-coat. A mind, 
whose small chambers look yet smaller by being crowded 
with furniture from all parts of the world, bought by labor, 
not received from inheritance or won by love, asserts that he 
must understand Dante well, better than any other person 
probably, because he has studied him through in this way 
thirty or forty times. As well declare you have a better ap 
preciation of Shakspeare than any one else because you have 
identified the birthplace of Dame Quickly, or ascertained the 
churchyard where the ghost of the royal Dane hid from the 
sight of that far more celestial spirit, his son. 

O, painstaking friends ! Shut your books, clear your 
minds from artificial nonsense, and feel that only by spirit can 
spirit be discerned. Dante, like each other great one, took 
the stuff that lay around him, and wove it into a garment of 
light. It is not by ravelling that you will best appreciate its 
tissue or design. It is not by studying out the petty strifes or 
external relations of his time, that you can become acquainted 
with the thought of Dante. To him these things were only 
soil in which to plant himself — figures by which to drama- 
tize and evolve his ideas. Would you learn him, go listen in 
the forest of human passions to all the terrible voices he 



ITALY. — CARY'S DANTE. 105 

heard with a tormented but never-to-be-deafened ear; go 
down into the hells, where each excess that mars the harmony 
of nature is punished by the sinner finding no food except 
from his own harvest ; pass through the purgatories of specu- 
lation, of struggling hope, and faith, never quite quenched, 
but smouldering often and long beneath the ashes. Soar if 
thou canst, but if thou canst not, clear thine eye to see this 
great eagle soar into the higher region where forms arrange 
themselves for stellar dance and spheral melody, — and 
thought, with costly-accelerated motion, raises itself a spiral 
which can only end in the heart of the Supreme. 

He who finds in himself no fitness to study Dante in this 
way, should regard himself as in the position of a candidate 
for the ancient mysteries, when rejected as unfit for initiation. 
He should seek in other ways to purify, expand, and strengthen 
his being, and, when he feels that he is nobler and stronger, 
return and try again whether he is " grown up to it," as the 
Germans say. 

" The difficulty is in the thoughts ; " and this cannot be 
obviated by the most minute acquaintance with the history of 
the times. Comparison of one edition with another is of use, 
as a guard against obstructions through mistake. Still more 
useful will be the method recommended by Mr. Cary, of 
comparing the Poet with himself; this belongs to the intel- 
lectual method, and is the way in which to study our intel- 
lectual friend. 

The versions of Cary and Lyell will be found of use to the 
student, if he wants to compare his ideas with those of accom- 
plished fellow-students. The poems in the London book 
would aid much in a full appreciation of the comedy ; they 
ought to be read in the original, but copies are not easily to 
be met here, unless in the great libraries. The Vita Naova 
is the noblest expression extant of the inward life of Love, 
the best preface and comment to every thing else that 
Dante did. 



106 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

'Tis pity that the designs of Flaxman are so poorly repro- 
duced in this American book. It would have been far better 
to have had it a little dearer, and thus better done. The 
designs of Flaxman were really a noble comment upon Dante, 
and might help to interpret him; and we are sorry that those 
who can see only a few of them should see them so imper- 
fectly. But in some, as in that of the meeting with Faiinata, 
the expression cannot be destroyed while one line of the 
original remained. The "lost portrait" we do not like as 
preface to " La Divina Comedia." To that belongs our 
accustomed object of reverence, the head of Dante, such as 
the Florentine women saw him, when they thought his hair 
and beard were still singed, his face dark and sublime witli 
what he had seen helow. 

Prefixed to the other book is a head " from a cast taken 
after death at Ravenna, A. D. 1321." It has the grandeur 
which death sometimes puts on ; the fulness of past life is 
there, but made sacred in Eternity. It is also the only front 
view of Dante we have seen. It is not unworthy to mark 
the point 

" When vigor failed the towering fantasy, 
But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel 
In even motion by the love impelled 
That moves the sun in heaven, and all the stars." 

We ought to say, in behalf of this publication, that whoso- 
ever wants Cary's version will rejoice, at last, as do we, to 
possess it in so fair and legible guise. 

Before leaving the Italians, we must mourn over the mis- 
prints of our homages to the great tragedian in the preced- 
ing review. Our manuscripts being ;i- illegible as if we were 
a great genius, we never complain of these errata, except 
when we are made to reverse our meaning on some vital 
point. We did not say that Al fieri was perfect in person, 



ITALY. — CARY'S DANTE. 107 

nor sundry other things that are there ; but we do mourn at 
seeming to say of our friends, " Why they felt they care little, 
but what they felt they scarcely knew," when in fact we 
asserted, " what they felt they surely knew." 

In the article on the Celestial Empire we had made this 
assertion of the Chinese music : " Like their poetry, the music 
is of the narrowest monotony ; " in place of which stands this 
assertion : " Like true poetry, their music is of the narrowest 
monotony." But we trust the most careless reader would not 
think the merely human mind capable of so original a remark, 
and will put this blasphemy to account of that little demon 
who has so much to answer for in the sufferings of poor 
writers before they can get their thoughts to the eyes of their 
fellow-creatures, in print, that there seems scarcely a chance 
of his being redeemed as long as there is one author in exist- 
ence to accuse him.* 

[* Although the errors here specially referred to by my sister have been 
corrected in this volume, I let her statement remain as explanation of any 
other errors -which may possibly have crept into type, in this volume, through 
the illegibility of some of her manuscripts from which I have been com- 
pelled to copy for this work. — Ed.1 



AMERICAN FACTS. 

Such is the title of a volume just issued from the press ; a 
grand title, which suggests the epic poet or the philosopher. 
The purpose of the work, however, is modest. It is merely a 
compilation, from which those who have lived at some distance 
from the great highway may get answers to their questions, 
as to events and circumstances which may have escaped them. 
It is one of those books which will be valued in the back- 
woods. 

It would be a great book indeed, and one that would require 
the eye and heart of a great man, — great as a judge, great as 
a seer, and great as a prophet, — that should select for us and 
present in harmonious outline the true American facts. To 
choose the right point of view supposes command of the field. 

Such a man must be attentive, a quiet observer of the 
slighter signs of growth. But he must not be one to dwell 
superstitiously on details, nor one to hasten to conclusions. 
He must have the eye of the eagle, the courage of the lion, 
the patience of the worm, and faith such as is the prerogative 
of man alone, and of man in the highest phase of his culture. 

We doubt not the destiny of our country — that she is to 
accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother 
of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has 
been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is 
now hard to say which way that destiny points. We can 
hardly exhibit the true American facts without some idea of 
the real character of America. Only one thing seems clear — 
that the energy here at work is very great, though the men 
employed in carrying out its purposes may have generally no 

(108) 



AMERICAN FACTS. 10? 

more individual ambition to understand those purposes, or 
cherish noble ones of their own, than the coral insect through 
whose restless working new continents are upheaved from 
ocean's breast. 

Such a man, passing in a boat from one extremity of the 
Mississippi to another, and observing every object on the 
shore as he passed, would yet learn nothing of universal or 
general value, because he has no principles, even in hope, by 
which to classify them. American facts ! Why, what has 
been done that marks individuality ? Among men there is 
Franklin. He is a fact, and an American fact. Niagara is 
another, in a different style. The way in which newspapers 
and other periodicals are managed is American ; a go-ahead, 
fearless adroitness is American ; so is not, exclusively, the 
want of strict honor. But we look about in vain for traits as 
characteristic of what may be individually the character of the 
nation,. as we can find at a glance in reference to Spain, Eng- 
land, France, or Turkey. America is as yet but a European 
babe ; some new ways and motions she has, consequent on a 
new position ; but that soul that may shape her mature life 
scarce begins to know itself yet. One thing is certain ; we live 
in a large place, no less morally than physically : woe to him 
who lives meanly here, and knows the exhibitions of selfish- 
ness and vanity as the only American facts. 
10 



NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS.* 

As we pass the old Brick Chapel our eye is sometimes 
arrested by placards that hang side by side. On one is ad- 
vertised " the Lives of the Apostles," on the other " Napo- 
leon and his Marshals." 

Surely it is the most monstrous thing the world ever saw, 
that eighteen hundred years' profound devotion to a religious 
teacher should not preclude flagrant and all but universal 
violation of his most obvious precepts ; that Napoleon and 
his Marshals should be some of the best ripened fruit of our 
time ; that our own people, so unwearied in building up tem- 
ples of wood and stone to the Prince of Peace, should be at 
this era mad with boyish exultation at the winning of battles, 
and in a bad cause too. 

In view of such facts we cannot wonder that Dr. Channing, 
the editor of the Tribune, and others who make Christianity 
their standard, should find little savor in glowing expositions 
of the great French drama, and be disgusted at words of de- 
fence, still more of admiration, spoken in behalf of its lead- 
ing actor. 

We can easily admit at once that the whole French drama 
was anti-Christian, just as the political conduct of every na- 
tion of Christendom has been thus far, with rare and brief 
exceptions. Something different might have been expected 
from our own, because the world has now attained a clearer 
consciousness of right, and in our case our position would 
have made obedience easy. We have not been led into 

* Napoleon and his Marshals, by J. T. Headley. 

(110) 



NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS. Ill 

temptation ; we sought it. It is greed, and not want, that has 
impelled this nation to wrong. The paths of peace would 
have been for her also the paths of wisdom and of pleasant- 
ness, but she would not, and has preferred the path of the 
beast of prey in the uncertain forest, to the green pastures 
where " walks the good Shepherd, his meek temples crowned 
with roses red and white." 

Since the state of things is such, we see no extremity of 
censure that should fall upon the great French leader, except 
that he was like the majority. He was ruthless and selfish 
on a larger scale than most monarchs ; but we see no differ- 
ence in grain, nor in principles of action. 

Admit, then, that he was not a good man, and never for one 
moment acted disinterestedly. But do not refuse to do hom- 
age to his genius. It is well worth your while to learn to 
appreciate that, if you wish to understand the Work that the 
spirit of the time did, and is still doing, through him ; for his 
mind is still upon the earth, working here through the tribu- 
tary minds it fed. "We must say, for our own part, we can- 
not admit the right of men severely to criticise Napoleon, 
till they are able to appreciate what he was, as well as see 
what he was not. And we see no mind of sufficient grasp, or 
high-placed enough to take this estimate duly, nor do we be- 
lieve this age will furnish one. Many problems will have to 
be worked out first. 

We reject the exclusively moral no less than the exclu- 
sively intellectual view, and find most satisfaction in those 
who, aiming neither at apology nor attack, make their obser- 
vations upon the great phenomenon as partial, and to be 
received as partial. 

Mr. Headley, in his first surprise at finding how falsely John 
Bull, rarely liberal enough to be fully trusted in evidence on 
any topic, has spoken of the acts of a hated and dreaded ioe, 
does indeed rush too much on the other side. He mistakes 
the touches of sentiment in Napoleon for genuine feeling. 



112 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Now we know that Napoleon loved to read Ossian, and could 
appreciate the beauty of tenderness : but we do not believe 
that he had one particle of what is properly termed heart : — 
that is, he could always silence sentiment at once when his 
projects demanded it. Then Mr. Headley finds apologies for 
acts where apology is out of place. They characterize the 
ruthless nature of the man, and that is all that can be said 
of them. He moved on, like the Juggernaut car, to his end, 
and spilled the blood that was needed for this, whether that 
blood were "ditch-water" or otherwise. Neither is this sup- 
posing him to be a monster. The human heart is very ca] ta- 
ble of such uncontrolled selfishness, just as it is of angelic 
love. " 'Tis but the first step that costs " — much. Yet 
some compassionate hand strewed flowers on Nero's grave, 
and the whole world cried shame when Bonaparte's Mame- 
luke forsook his master. 

Mr. Headley does not seem to be aware that there is no 
trust to be put in Napoleon's own account of his actions. 
He seems to have been almost incapable of speaking sincerely 
to those about him. We doubt whether he could have for- 
gotten with the woman he loved, that she might become his 
historiographer. 

But granting the worst that can be said of ruthless acts in 
the stern Corsican, are we to reserve our anathema for him 
alone? He is no worse than the other crowned ones, against 
whom he felt himself continually in the balance. He has 
shed a greater quantity of blood, and done mightier wrongs, 
because he had more power, and followed with more fervor a 
more dazzling lure. AVe see no other difference between his 
conduct and that of the great Frederic of Prussia. He never 
did any thing so meanly wicked as has ju-t been done in 
stirring up the Polish peasants to assassinate the nobles. lie 
never did any thing so atrocious as has been dene by Nicho- 
las of Russia, who, just after his hypocritical intercourse with 
that "venerable man," the Pope, when he so zealously de- 



NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS. 113 

fended himself against the charge of scourging nuns to con- 
vert them to the Greek church, administers the knout to a 
noble and beautiful lady because she had given shelter for 
an hour to the patriot Dembinski. Why then so zealous 
against Napoleon only ? He is but a specimen of what man 
must become when he will be king over the bodies, where he 
cannot over the souls, of his fellow-men. We doubt if it is 
any worse in the sight of God to drain France of her best blood 
by the conscription, than to tear the flower of Genius from 
the breast of Italy to perish in a dungeon, leaving her over- 
whelmed and broken-hearted. Leaving all this aside, and 
granting that Napoleon might have done more and better, had 
his heart been pure from ambition, which gave it such elec- 
tric power to animate a vast field of being, there is no reason 
why we should not prize what he did do. And here we think 
Mr. Headley's style the only one in place. We honor him for 
the power he shows of admiring the genius which, in plough- 
ing its gigantic furrow, broke up every artificial barrier that 
hid the nations of Europe one from the other — that has left 
the " career open to talent," by a gap so broad that no " Chi- 
nese alliance " can ever close it again, and in its vast plans of 
civic improvement half-anticipated Fourier. With him all 
thoughts became things ; it has been spoken in blame, it has 
been spoken in praise ; for ourselves we see not how this 
most practical age and country can refuse to apprehend the 
designs, and study the instincts of this wonderful practical 
genius. 

The characters of the marshals are kept up with the 
greatest spirit, and that power of seizing leading traits that 
gives these sketches the greatness of dramatic poetry. The 
marshals are majestic figures ; men vulgar and undeveloped 
on many sides, but always clear and strong in their own way. 
One mind animates them, and of that mind Napoleon is the 
culminating point. He did not choose them ; they were a 
part of himself, a part of the same thought of which he was 
10* 



114 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

the most forcible expression. If sometimes inclined to dis- 
parage them, it was as a man might disparage his hand by 
saying it was not his head. He truly felt that he was the cen- 
tral force, though some of them were greater in the details 
of action than himself. Attempts have often been made to 
darken even the military fame of Napoleon and his generals 

— attempts disgraceful enough from a foe whom they so long 
held in terror. But to any unprejudiced mind there is evident 
in the conduct of their battles, the development of the instincts 
of genius in mighty force, and to inevitable results. 

With all the haste of hand and inequality of touch they 
show, these sketches are full of strength and brilliancy, an 
honor to the country that produced them. There is no got-up 
harmony, no attempt at originality or acuteness ; all is living, 

— the overflow of the mind; we like Mr. Headley ; even in 
his faults he is a most agreeable contrast to the made men of 
the day. 

In the sketches of the Marshals we have the men before 
us, a living reality. Massena, at the siege of Genoa, is rep- 
resented with a great deal of simple force. The whole per- 
sonality of Murat, with his "Oriental nature" and Oriental 
dress, is admirably depicted. Why had nobody ever before 
had the clearness of perception to see just this, and no jnore, 
in the "theatrical" Murat? Of his darling hero. Ney, the 
writer has implied so much all along, that he lays less stress 
on what he says of him directly. He thinks it is all under- 
stood, and it is. 

Take this book for just what it is ; do not look for cool dis- 
cussion, impartial criticism, but take it as a vivacious and feel- 
ing representation of events and actors in a great era : you 
will find it full of truth, such as only sympathy could teach, 
and will derive from it a pleasure and profit lively and gen- 
uine as itself. As to denying or correcting its statements, it 
is very desirable that those who are able should do that part 
of the work ; but, in doing it, let them be grateful for what is 



NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS. 115 

done, and what they could not do ; grateful for reproduction 
such as he who throws himself into the genius and the per- 
sons of the time may hope for ; but he never can who 
keeps himself composed in critical distance and self-posses- 
sion. You cannot have all excellences combined in one per- 
son ; let us then cheerfully work together to complete the 
beautiful whole, — beautiful in its unity, — no less beautiful 
in its variety. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION* 

This lecture of Dr. Warren is printed in a form suitable 
for popular distribution, while the high reputation of its 
author insures it respect. Readers will expect to find here 
those rules for daily practice taught by that plain common- 
sense which men possess from nature, but strangely lose 
sight of, amid their many inventions, and are obliged to 
rediscover by aid of experience and science. 

Here will be found those general statements as to modes 
of exercise, care of the skin, choice of food, and time, and 
circumstances required for its digestion, which might furnish 
the ounce of prevention that is worth so many pounds of 
cure. And how much are these needed in this country, 
where the most barbarous ignorance prevails on the sub- 
ject of cleanliness, sleeping accommodations, &c. ! On these 
subjects improvement would be easy; that of diet is far more 
complicated, and is, unfortunately, one which requires great 
knowledge of the ways in which the human frame is affected 
by the changes of climate and various other influences, even 
wisely to discuss. If jt is difficult where a race, mostly indige- 
nous to the soil, feed upon what Mother Nature has prepared 
expressly for their use, and where excess or want of judgment 
in its use produces disease, it must be far more so where 
men come from all latitudes to live under new circumstances, 
and need a judicious adaptation of the old to the new. The 
dogmatism and proscription that prevail on this topic amuse 



* Physical Education and the Preservation of Health, by John C. 
Warren. 

(116) 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 117 

the observer and distress the patient. " Touch no meat for 
your life," says one. " It is not meat, but sugar, that is your 
ruin," cries another. "No, salt is the destruction of the 
world," sadly and gravely declares a third. Milk, which 
once conciliated all regards, has its denunciators. " Water," 
say some, " is the bliss that shall dissolve all bane. Drink ; 
wash — take to yourself all the water you can get." "That 
is madness — is far worse than useless," cry others, "unless 
the water be pure. You must touch none that has not been 
tested by a chemist." " Yes, you may at any rate drink it," 
say others, " and in large quantities, for the power of water 
to aid digestion is obvious to every observer." 

" No," says Dr. Warren, " animals do not drink at the time 
they eat, but some hours after ; and they generally take very 
small quantities of liquid, compared with that which is used 
by man. The savage, in his native wilds, takes his solid food, 
when he can obtain it, to satiety, reposes afterwards, and then 
resuming his chase through the forest, stops at the rivulet to 
allay his thirst. The disadvantage of taking a large quantity 
of liquid must be obvious to all those who consider that the 
digesting liquid is diluted and weakened in proportion to the 
quantity of drink." 

What wonder is it, if even the well-disposed among the 
multitude, seeing such dissension among the counsellors, gath 
ering just enough from their disputes to infer that they have 
no true philosophical basis for their opinions, and seeing 
those who would set the example in practice of this art with- 
out science of dietetics generally among the most morbid and 
ill-developed specimens of humanity, just throw aside all rule 
upon the subject, partake of what is set before them, trust to 
air, exercise, and good intentions to ward off the worst effects 
of the promiscuous fare ? 

Yet, while hopeless at present of selecting: the right articles, 
and building up. so far as hereditary taint will permit, a pure 
and healthful body from feeding on congenial substances, we 



118 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

know at least this much, that stimulants and over-eating — 
not food — are injurious, and may take care enough of our- 
selves to avoid these. 

The other branches we can really act wisely in, Dr. War* 
ren, after giving the usual directions (rarely followed as yet) 
for airing beds and sleeping-rooms, adds, — 

" The manner in which children sleep will readily be ac- 
knowledged to be important ; yet very little attention is paid 
to this matter. Children are crowded together in small, un- 
ventilated rooms, often two or three in a bed, and on beds 
composed of half prepared feathers, from which issues a 
noxious effluvia, infecting the child at a period when he is 
least able to resist its influence ; so that in the morning, 
instead of feeling the full refreshment and vigor natural to 
his age, he is pale, languid, and for some time indisposed 
to exertion. 

" The rooms in which children are brought up should be 
well aired, by having a fireplace, which should be kept open 
the greater part of the year. There never should be more 
than one in the same bed ; and this remark may be applied 
with equal propriety to adults. The substance on which they 
lie should be hair, thoroughly prepared, so that it should have 
no bad smell. In winter it may be of cotton, or of hair and 
cotton. It would be very desirable, however, to place chil- 
dren in separate apartments, as well as in separate beds. 

"It has been justly said that adults as well as children had 
better employ single instead of double beds ; this remark is 
intended to apply universally. The use of double beds has 
been very generally adopted in this country, perhaps in part 
as a matter of economy ; but this practice is objectionable, for 
more reasons than can be stated here." 

On the subject of exercise, he mentions particularly the 
triangle, and we copy what he says, because of the perfect 
ease and convenience with which one could be put up and 
used in every bed-chamber. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 1_l 

u The exercising the upper limbs is too much neglected ; 
and it is important to provide the means of bringing them 
into action, as well to develop their powers as to enlarge and 
invigorate the chest, with which they are connected, and 
which they powerfully influence. The best I know of is the 
use of the triangle. This admirably exerts the upper limbs 
and the muscles of the chest, and, indeed, when adroitly em- 
ployed, those of the whole body, The triangle is made of a 
stick of walnut wood, four feet long, and an inch and a half in 
diameter. To each end is connected a rope, the opposite ex- 
tremities of which being confined together at such height as to 
allow the motion of swinging by the hands." 

"We have ourselves derived the greatest benefit from this 
simple means. Gymnastic exercises, and if possible in the 
open air, are needed by every one who is not otherwise led 
to exercise all parts of the body by various kinds of labor. 
Some, though only partial provision, is made for boys by 
gymnasia and riding-schools. In wiser nations, such have 
been the care of the state. And in despotic governments, the 
jealousy of a tyrant was never more justly awakened than 
when the youth of the land, by a devotion to gymnastic exer- 
cises, showed their aspiration to reach the healthful stature of 
manhood. For every one who possesses a strong mind in a 
sane body is heir presumptive to the kingdom of this world ; 
he needs no external credentials, but has only to appear and 
make clear his title. But for such a princely form the eye 
searches the street, the mart, and the council-chamber, in vain. 

Those who feel that the game of life is so nearly up with 
them that they cannot devote much of the time that is left to 
the care of wise living in their own persons, should, at least, 
be unwilling to injure the next generation by the same igno- 
rance which has blighted so many of us in our earliest year. 
Such should attend to the work of Mr. Combe,* among other 

* Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy, by Andrew 
Combe, M. D. 



1: j.-0 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

good books. Mr. Combe has clone much good already in this 
country, and this book should be circulated every where, for 
many of its suggestions are too obviously just not to be 
adopted as soon as read. 

Dr. Warren bears his testimony against the pernicious 
effects that follow upon the use of tobacco, and we cannot 
but hope that what he says of its tendency to create cancer 
will have weight with some who are given to the detesta- 
ble habit of chewing. This practice is so odious to women, 
that we must regard its prevalence here as a token of the 
very light regard in which they are held, and the consequent 
want of refinement among men. Dr. Warren seems to favor 
the practice of hydropathy to some extent, but must needs 
bear his testimony in full against homceopathv. ]No matter; 
the little doses will insinuate their way, and cure the ills that 
flesh is heir to, 

"For a' that, and a' that, 
And mickle mair for a' that." 



FREDERICK DOUGLASS.* 

Frederick Douglass has been for some time a promi- 
nent member of the abolition party. He is said to be an 
excellent speaker — can speak from a thorough personal ex- 
perience — and has upon the audience, besides, the influence 
of a strong character and uncommon talents. In the book 
before us he has put into the story of his life the thoughts, the 
feelings, and the adventures that have been so affecting 
through the living voice ; nor are they less so from the printed 
page. He has had the courage to name persons, times, 
and places, thus exposing himself to obvious danger, and set- 
ting the seal on his deep convictions as to the religious need 
of speaking the whole truth. Considered merely as a narra- 
tive, we have never read one more simple, true, coherent, and 
warm with genuine feeling. It is an excellent piece of writ- 
ing, and on that score to be prized as a specimen of the pow- 
ers of the black race, which prejudice persists in disputing. 
"We prize highly all evidence of this kind, and it is becoming 
more abundant. The cross of the Legion of Honor has just 
been conferred in France on Dumas and Soulie, both cele- 
brated in the paths of light literature. Dumas, whose father 
was a general in the French army, is a mulatto ; Soulie, a 
quadroon. He went from New Orleans, where, though to the 
eye a white man, yet, as known to have African blood in his 
veins, he could never have enjoyed the privileges due to a 
human being. Leaving the land of freedom, he found him- 
self free to develop the powers that God had given. 

* Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, writ- 
ten by himself. 

11 (121) 



122 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Two wise and candid thinkers — the Scotchman Kinmont, 
prematurely lost to this country, of which he was so faithful 
and generous a student, and the late Dr. Channing, — both 
thought that the African race had in them a peculiar ele- 
ment, which, if it could be assimilated with those imported 
among us from Europe, would give to genius a development, 
and to the energies of character a balance and harmony, 
beyond what has been seen heretofore in the history of the 
world. Such an element is indicated in their lowest estate by 
a talent for melody, a ready skill at imitation and adaptation, 
an almost indestructible elasticity of nature. It is to be re- 
marked in the writings both of Soulie and Dumas, full of 
faults, but glowing with plastic life and fertile in invention. 
The same torrid energy and saccharine fulness may be felt in 
the writings of this Douglass, though his life, being one of 
action or resistance, has been less favorable to such powers 
than one of a more joyous flow might have been. 

The book is prefaced by two communications — one from 
Garrison, and one from Wendell Phillips. That from the 
former is in his usual over-emphatic style. His motives 
and his course have been noble and generous ; we look upon 
him with high respect; but he has indulged in violent invec- 
tive and denunciation till he has spoiled the temper of his 
mind. Like a man who has been in the habit of screaming 
himself hoarse to make the deaf hear, he can no longer pitch 
his voice on a key agreeable to common ears. Mr. Phillips's 
remarks are equally decided, without this exaggeration in the 
tone. Douglass himself seems very just and temperate. We 
feel that his view, even of those who have injured him most, 
may be relied upon. lie knows how to allow for motives and 
influences. Upon the subject of religion, he speaks with 
great force, and not more than our own sympathies can re- 
spond to. The inconsistencies of slaveholding professors of 
religion cry to Heaven. We are not disposed to detest, or 
refuse communion with them. Their blindness is but one 



FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 123 

form of that prevalent fallacy which substitutes a creed for a 
faith, a ritual for a life. We have seen too much of this sys- 
tem of atonement not to know that those who adopt it often 
began with good intentions, and are, at any rate, in their mis- 
takes worthy of the deepest pity. But that is no reason why 
the truth should not be uttered, trumpet-tongued, about the 
thing. " Bring no more vain oblations ; " sermons must daily 
be preached anew on that text. Kings, five hundred years 
ago, built churches with the spoils of war; clergymen to-day 
command slaves to obey a gospel which they will not allow 
them to read, and call themselves Christians amid the curses 
of their fellow-men. The world ought to get on a little faster 
than this, if there be really any principle of improvement in 
it. The kingdom of heaven may not at the beginning have 
dropped seed larger than a mustard-seed, but even from that 
we had a right to expect a fuller growth than we can be- 
lieve to exist, when we read such a book as this of Doug- 
lass. Unspeakably affecting is the fact that he never saw his 
mother at all by daylight. 

" I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light 
of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down 
with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she 
was gone." 

The following extract presents a suitable answer to the 
Jbackneyed argument drawn by the defender of slavery from 
the songs of the slave, and is also a good specimen of the 
powers of observation and manly heart of the writer. We 
wish that every one may read his book, and see what a mind 
might have been stifled in bondage — what a man may be 
subjected to the insults of spendthrift dandies, or the blows 
of mercenary brutes, in whom there is. no whiteness except of 
the skin, no humanity except in the outward form, and of 
whom the Avenger will not fail yet to demand, •• Where ia 
thy brother ? " 

"The Home Plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the appear- 



124 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

ance of a country village. All the mechanical operations for 
all the farms were performed here. The shoemaking and 
mending, the blacksmithing, cartwrighting, coopering, weav- 
ing, and grain-grinding, were all performed by the slaves on 
the Home Plantation. The whole place wore a business-like 
aspect very unlike the neighboring farms. The number of 
houses, too, conspired to give it advantage over the neighbor- 
ing farms. It was called by the slaves the Great House 
Farm. Few privileges were esteemed higher, by the slaves 
of the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands at 
the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds 
with greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his 
election to a seat in the American Congress, than a slave on 
one of the out-farms would be of his election to do errands at 
the Great House Farm. They regarded it as evidence of 
great confidence reposed in them by their overseers ; and it 
was on this account, as well as a constant desire to be out of 
the field, from under the driver's lash, that they esteemed it a 
high privilege, one worth careful living for. He was called 
the smartest and most trusty fellow who had this honor con- 
ferred upon him the most frequently. The competitors for 
this office sought as diligently to please their overseers as the 
office-seekers in the political parties seek to please and de- 
ceive the people. The same traits of character might be seen 
in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the 
political parties. 

" The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for 
the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, 
were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would 
make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with 
their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the 
deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went 
along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that 
came up came out, — if not in the word, in the sound, — and 
as frequently in the one as in the other. They would some- 



FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 125 

times sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous 
tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic 
tone. Into all their songs they would manage to weave some- 
thing of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do 
this when leaving home. They would then sing most exult- 
ingly the following words : — 

' I am going away to the Great House Farm ! 
0, yea ! O, yea ! ! ' 

This they would sing as a chorus to words which to many 
would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were 
full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought 
that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to im- 
press some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than 
the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject 
could do. 

" I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of 
those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself 
within the circle ; so that I neither saw nor heard as those 
without might see aud hear. They told a tale of woe which 
was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension ; they 
were tones loud, long, and deep ; they breathed the prayer 
and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. 
Every tone was a testimony against, slavery, and a prayer to 
God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild 
notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable 
sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hear- 
ing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, 
afflicts me ; and while I am writing these lines, an expression 
of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To 
those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the de- 
humanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that 
conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred 
of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in 
bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-kill- 
11* 



126 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

ing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, 
and, on allowance day, place himself in the deep pine woods, 
and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall 
pass through the chambers of his soul ; and if he is not thus 
impressed, it will only be because ' there is no flesh in his 
obdurate heart.' 

" I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the 
north, to find persons who could speak of the singing among 
slaves as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is 
impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing 
most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave 
represent the sorrows of his heart ; and he is relieved by 
them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At 
least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my 
sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy 
and singing for joy w r ere alike uncommon to me while in the 
jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a 
desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evi- 
dence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave ; 
the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the 
same emotion." 



PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE * 

These volumes have met with as warm a reception " as 
ever unripe author's quick conceit," to use Mr. Taylor's own 
language, could hope or wish ; and so deservedly, that the 
critic's happy task, in examining them, is to point out, not 
what is most to be blamed, but what is most to be praised. 

With joy we hail a new poet. Star after star has been 
withdrawn from our firmament, and when that of Coleridge 
set, we seemed in danger of being left, at best, to a gray and 
confounding twilight ; but, lo ! a " ray of pure white light " 
darts across the obscured depths of ether, and allures our eyes 
and hearts towards the rising orb from which it emanates. 
Let us tremble no more lest our summer pass away without 
its roses, but receive our present visitor as the harbinger of a 
harvest of delights. 

The natural process of the mind in forming a judgment is 
comparison. The office of sound criticism is to teach that this 
comparison should be made, not between the productions of 
differently-constituted minds, but between any one of these and 
a fixed standard of perfection. Nevertheless it is not contrary 
to the canon to take a survey of the labors of many artists 
with reference to one, if we value them, not according to the 
degree of pleasure we have experienced from them, which 
must always depend upon our then age, the state of the pas- 
sions and relations with life, but according to the success of the 
artist in attaining the object he himself had in view. To 
illustrate : In the same room hang two pictures, Raphael's 

* Philip van Artevcldc, A Dramatic Romance, by Henry Taylor. 

' (127) 



128 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Madonna and Martin's Destruction of Nineveh. A person 
enters, capable of admiring both, but young, excitable ; he is 
delighted with the Madonna, but probably far more so with 
the other, because his imagination is at that time more devel- 
oped than the pure love for beauty which is the characteristic 
of a taste in a higher state of cultivation. He prefers the 
Martin, because it excites in his mind a thousand images of 
sublimity and terror, recalls the brilliancy of Oriental history, 
and the stern pomp of the old prophetic day, and rouses his 
mind to a high state of action, then as congenial with its wants 
as at a later day would be the feeling of contented absorption, 
of perfect satisfaction with a production of the human soul, 
which one of Raphael's calmly beautiful creations is fitted to 
cause. Now, it would be very unfair for this person to pro- 
nounce the Martin superior to the Raphael, because it then 
gave him more pleasure. But if he said, the one is intended 
to excite the imagination, the other to gratify the taste, that 
which fulfils its object most completely must be the best, 
whether it give me most pleasure or no ; he would be on the 
right ground, and might consider the two pictures relatively 
to one another, without danger of straying very far from the 
truth. 

This is the ground we would assume in a hasty sketch, 
which will not, we hope, be deemed irrelevant, of the most 
prominent essays to which the last sixty years have given 
rise in the department of the work now before us, previous to 
stating our opinion of its merits. Many, we are aware, ridi- 
cule the idea of filling reviews with long dissertations, and say 
they only want brief accounts of such books as are coming 
out, by way of saving time. With such we cannot agree. 
We think the office of the reviewer is, indeed, in part, to point 
out to the public attention deserving works, which ought 
otherwise slumber too long unknown on the bookseller's 
shelves, but still more to present to the reader as large a 
cluster of objects round one point as possible, thus, by sugges- 



PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE. 129 

tion, stimulating him to take a broader or more careful view 
of the subject than his indolence or his business would have 
permitted. 

The terms Classical and Romantic, which have so long 
divided European critics, and exercised so powerful an influ- 
ence upon their decisions, are not much known or heeded 
among us, — as, indeed, belles-lettres cannot, generally, in our 
busy state of things, be important or influential, as among a 
less free and more luxurious people, to whom the more im- 
portant truths are proffered through those indirect but allur- 
ing mediums. Here, where every thing may be spoken or 
written, and the powers that be, abused without ceremony on 
the very highway, the Muse has nothing to do with dagger 
or bowl ; hardly is the censor's wand permitted to her hand. 
Yet is her lyre by no means unheeded, and if it is rather by 
refining our tastes than by modelling our opinions that she 
influences us, yet is that influence far from unimportant. 
And the time is coming, perhaps in our day, we may (if war 
do not untimely check the national progress) even see and 
temper its beginning, when the broad West shall swarm with 
an active, happy, and cultivated population ; when the South, 
freed from the incubus which now oppresses her best energies, 
shall be able to do justice to the resources of her soil and of 
her mind ; when the East, gathering from every breeze the 
riches of the old world, shall be the unwearied and loving 
agent to those regions which lie far away from the great deep, 
our bulwark and our minister. Then will the division of 
labor be more complete ; then will a surplus of talent be 
spared from the mart, the forum, and the pulpit ; then will 
the fine arts assume their proper dignity, as the expression of 
what is highest and most ethereal in the mind of a people. 
Then will our quarries be thoroughly explored, ami furnish 
materials for stately fabrics to adorn the face of all the land, 
while our ports shall be crowded with foreign artists flocking 
to take lessons in the school of American architecture. 



130 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Then will our floral treasures be arranged into harmonious 
gardens, which, environing tasteful homes, shall dimple all the 
landscape. Then will our Allstons and our Greenoughs pre- 
side over great academies, and be raised far above any need, 
except of giving outward form to the beautiful ideas which 
animate them ; and ornament from the exhaustless stores of 
genius the marble halls where the people meet to rejoice, or 
to mourn, or where dwell those wise and good whom the peo- 
ple delight to honor. Then shall music answer to and exalt 
the national spirit, and the poet's brows shall be graced with 
the civic as well as the myrtle crown. Then shall we have 
an American mind, as well as an American system, and, no 
longer under the sad necessity of exchanging money for 
thoughts, traffic on perfectly equal terms with the other hem- 
isphere. Then — ah, not yet ! — shall our literature make 
its own laws, and give its own watchwords ; till then we 
must learn and borrow from that of nations who possess a 
higher degree of cultivation though a much lower one of 
happiness. 

The term Classical, used in its narrow sense, implies a ser- 
vile adherence to the Unities, but in its wide and best sense, 
it means such a simplicity of plan, selection of actors and 
events, such judicious limitations on time and range of subject, 
as may concentrate the interest, perfect the illusion, and make 
the impression most distinct and forcible. Although no advo- 
cates for the old French school, with its slavish obedience to 
rule, which introduces follies greater than those it would guard 
against, we lay the blame, not on their view of the drama, 
but on the then bigoted nationality of the French mind, which 
converted the Mussulman prophet into a De Retz, the Roman 
princess into a French grisette. and infected the clear and 
buoyant atmosphere of Greece with the vapors of the Seine. 
We speak of the old French Drama : with the modern we do 
not profess to be acquainted, having met with scarcely any 
specimens in our own bookstores or libraries ; but if it has 



PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE. 131 

been revolutionized with the rest of their literature, it is 
probably as unlike as possible to the former models. 

We shall speak of productions in the classical spirit first ; 
because Mr. Taylor is a disciple of the other school, though 
otherwise we should have adopted a contrary course. 

The most perfect specimens of this style with which we 
are acquainted are the Filippo, the Saul, and the Myrrha of 
Alfieri ; the Wallenstein of Schiller ; the Tasso and the Iph- 
igenia of Goethe. England furnishes nothing of the sort. 
She is thoroughly Shakspearian. 

There is no higher pleasure than to see a genius of a wild, 
impassioned, many-sided eagerness, restraining its exuberance 
by its sense of fitness, taming its extravagance beneath the 
rule its taste approves, exhibiting the soul within soul, and 
the force of the will over all that we inherit. The abandon 
of genius has its beauty — far more beautiful its voluntary 
submission to wise law. A picture, a description, has beauty, 
the beauty of life ; these pictures, these descriptions, arranged 
upon a plan, made subservient to a purpose, have a higher 
beauty — that of the mind of man acting upon life. Art is 
nature, but nature new-modelled, condensed, and harmonized. 
We are not merely like mirrors, to reflect our own times to 
those more distant. The mind has a light of its own, and by 
it illumines what it re-creates. 

This is the ground of our preference for the classical school, 
and for Alfieri beyond all pupils of that school. We hold that 
if a vagrant bud of poesy here and there be blighted by con- 
forming to its rules, our loss is more than made up to us by 
our enjoyment of plan, of symmetry, of the triumph of genius 
over multiplied obstacles. 

It has been often said that the dramas of Alfieri contrast 
directly with his character. This is, perhaps, not true ; we 
do but see the depths of that volcano which in early days 
boiled over so fiercely. The wild, infatuated youth often 
becomes the stern, pitiless old man. Alfieri did but bend 



132 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

his surplus strength upon literature, and became a despot to 
his own haughty spirit, instead of domineering over those of 
others. 

We have selected his three masterpieces, though he, to 
himself an inexorable critic, has shown no indulgence to his 
own works, and the least successful of those which remain to 
us, Maria Stuarda, is marked by great excellence. 

Filippo has been so ably depicted in a work now well 
known, " Carlyle's Life of Schiller," that we need not dwell 
upon it. All the light of the picture, the softer feelings of 
the hapless Carlos and Elizabeth, is so cast, as to make more 
visible the awing darkness of the tyrant's perverted mind, 
deadened to all virtue by a false religion, cold and hopeless 
as the dungeons of his own Inquisition, and relentless as 
death. Forced by the magic wand of genius into the stilling 
precincts of this mind, horror-struck that we must sympathize 
with such a state as possible to humanity, we rush from the 
contemplation of the picture, and would gladly curtain it over 
in our hall of imagery forever. Yet stigmatize not our poet 
as a dark master, courting the shade, and hating the glad 
lights which love and hope cast upon human nature. The 
drama has a holy meaning, a patriot moral, and we, above 
all, should reverence him, the aristocrat by birth, by educa- 
tion, and by tastes, whose love of liberty could lead him to 
such conclusions. 

In " Saul," a bright rainbow rises, by the aid of the Sun of 
Righteousness, above the commotion of the tempest. David, 
the faithful, the hopeful, combining the aesthetic culture, the 
winged inspiration of the poet with the noble pride of Israel's 
chosen warrior, contrasts finely with the unfortunate Saul, his 
mind darkened and convulsed by jealousy, vain regrets, and 
fear of the God he has forgotten how to love. The other 
three actors shade in the picture without attracting our atten- 
tion from the two principal personages. The Hebrew spirit 
breathes through the whole. The beauty of the lyric effu- 



PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE. 133 

sions is so generally felt, that encomium is needless ; we shall 
only observe that in them Alfieri's style, usually so severe, 
becomes flexible, melodious, and glowing ; thus we may easily 
perceive what he might have done, had not the simplicity of 
his genius disdained the foreign aid of ornament upon its 
Doric proportions. 

Myrrha is, however, the highest exertion of his genius. 
The remoteness of time and manners, the subject, at once so 
hackneyed and so revolting, these great obstacles he seizes 
with giant grasp, and moulds them to his purpose. Our 
souls are shaken to the foundation ; all every-day barriers fall 
with the great convulsion of passion. We sorrow, we sicken, 
we die with the miserable girl, so pure under her involuntary 
crime of feeling, pursued by a malignant deity in her soul's 
most sacred recesses, torn from all communion with humanity, 
and the virtue she was framed to adore. The perfection of 
plan, the matchless skill with which every circumstance is 
brought out ! The agonizing rapidity with which her misery 
"\a camminando al fine"! No! never was higher tragic 
power exhibited ; never were love, terror, pity, fused into a 
more penetrating draught ! Myrrha is a favorite acting-play 
injtaly — a fact inconceivable to an English or Americau 
mind ; for (to say nothing of other objections) we should 
think such excess of emotion unbearable. But in those me-* 
ridian climes they drink deep draughts of passion too fre- 
quently to taste them as we do. 

We pass to works of far inferior power, but of greater 
beauty. We have selected Iphigenia and Tasso as the most 
finished results of their author's mature views of art. On his 
plays in the Romantic style, we shall touch in another place. 
If any one ask why we do not class Faust with either, we 
reply, that is a work without a parallel ; one of those few 
originals which have their laws within themselves, and should 
always be discussed singly. 

The unity of plan in Iphigenia is perfect. There is one 
12 



134 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

pervading idea. The purity of Iphigenia's mind must be 
kept unsullied, that she may be a fit intercessor to the gods 
in behalf of her polluted family. Goethe, in his travels through 
Italy, saw a picture of a youthful Christian saint — Agatha, 
we think ; struck by the radiant purity of her expression, he 
resolved his heathen priestess should not have one thought 
which could revolt the saint of the true religion. This idea 
is wonderfully preserved throughout a drama so classic in its 
coloring and manners. The happiest development of char- 
acter, an interest in the denouement which is only so far tem- 
pered by our trust in the lovely heroine, as to permit us to 
enjoy all the minuter beauties on our way, (this the breath- 
less interest of Alfieri's dramas hardly allows, on a fourth or 
fifth reading,) exquisite descriptive touches, and expressions 
of sentiment, unequalled softness and harmony of style, dis- 
tinguish a drama not to be surpassed in its own department. 
Torquato Tasso * is of inferior general, but greater particular 
beauty. The two worldly, the two higher characters, with 
that of Alphonso halting between, are shaded with equal del- 
icacy and distinctness. The inward-turning imagination of 
the ill-fated bard, and the fantastic tricks it plays with life, 
are painted as only a poet's soul of equal depth, of greater 
versatility, could have painted them. In analysis of the pas- 
sions, and eloquent descriptions of their more hidden work- 
ings, some parts may vie with Rousseau ; while several effu- 
sions of feeling are worthy of Tasso's own lyre, with its 
"breaking heartstring's tone." The conduct of the piece 
being in perfect accordance with the plan, gives the sat- 
isfaction we have mentioned in speaking of RaphaeFe Ma- 
donna. 

Schiller's Wallenstein does not strictly belong to this class, 
yet we are disposed to claim it as observing the unities of 

[* For a translation by my sister of this Drama, see Part III. of her 
" Art, Literature, and the Drama," where it is now, for the first time, pub- 
lished, simultaneously with the appearance of this volume. — Ed.] 



PHILIP TAN ARTEVELDE. 135 

time and interest ; the latter especially is entire, notwith- 
standing the many actors and side-scenes which are intro- 
duced. Numberless touches of nature arrest our attention, 
bright lights are flashed across many characters, but our 
interest, momently increasing, is for Wallenstein — for the 
perversion, the danger, the ruin of that monarch soul, that fall- 
ing son of the morning. Even that we feel in Max, with his 
celestial bloom of heart, in Thekla's sweet trustfulness, is 
subsidiary. This work, generally known to the reader through 
Mr. Coleridge's translation, affords an imperfect illustration 
of our meaning. Miss Baillie's plays on the passions hold a 
middle place. Unity of purpose there is — no unity of plan 
or conduct. Bold, fine outline — very bad coloring. Pro- 
found, beautifully-expressed reflections on the passions — utter 
want of skill in showing them out ; a thorough feeling, indeed, 
of the elements of tragedy, — had but the vitalizing energy 
been added. Her plays are failures ; but since she has given 
us nothing else, we cannot but rejoice in having these. 'Tis 
great pity that the authoress of De Montfort and Basil should 
not have attempted a narrative poem. 

Coleridge and Byron are signal instances how peculiar is 
the kind of talent required for the drama ; one a philoso- 
pher, both men of great genius and uncommon mastery over 
language, both conversant with each side of human nature, 
both considering the drama in its true light as one of the 
highest departments of literature, both utterly wanting in sim- 
plicity, pathos, truth of passion and liveliness of action — in 
that thrilling utterance of heart to heart, whose absence here, 
no other excellence can atone for. Of Maturin and Knowles 
we do not speak, because theirs, though very good acting 
plays, are not, like Mr. Taylor's, written for the clo.-et ; of 
Milman, because not sufficiently acquainted with his plays. 
AVe would here pay a tribute to our countryman Ilillhouse, 
whose Hadad, read at a very early age, we remember with 
much delight. Probably our judgment now might be differ- 



136 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

ent ; but a work which could make so deep an impression on 
any age, must have genius. We are sorry we have never 
since met it in any library or parlor, and are not competent 
to speak of it more particularly. 

It will be seen that Mr. Taylor has not attempted the sort 
of dramatic poetry which we consider the highest, but lias 
labored in that which the great wizard of Avon adopted, 
because it lay nearest at hand to clothe his spells withal, and 
consecrated it, with his world-embracing genius, to the (in 
our judgment) no small detriment of his country's taste. 
Having thus declared that we cannot grant him our very 
highest meed of admiration, (though w r e will not say that he 
might not win it if he made the essay,) we hasten to meet 
him on his own ground. " Dramatica Poesis est veluti Ilis- 
toria spectabilis," is his motto, taken from Bacon, who formed 
his taste on Shakspeare. We would here mention that 
Goethe's earlier works, Goetz von Berlichingen and Egmont 
are of this school — brilliant fragments of past days, ballads 
acted out, historical scenes and personages clustered round a 
hero ; and we have seen that his ripened taste preferred the 
form of Iphigenia and Tasso. 

We cannot too strongly express our approbation of the 
opinions maintained in his short preface to this work. We 
rejoice to see a leader coming forward who is likely to 
un-Hemansize and un-Cornwallize literature. We too have 
been sick, we too have been intoxicated with luords till we 
could hardly appreciate thoughts ; perhaps our present writ- 
ing shows traces of this Lower-Empire taste ; but we have 
sense enough left to welcome the English Phocion, who would 
regenerate public feeling. The candor and modest dignity 
with which these opinions are offered charm us. Tin- re- 
marks upon Shelley, whom we have loved, and do still love 
passing well, brought truth home to us in a definite shape. 
With regard to the lowness of Lord Byron's standard of 
character, every thing indeed hafi beeo -aid which could be, 



PHILIP YAN ARTEYELDE. 137 

but not as Mr. Taylor has said it ; and we opine that his 
refined and gentle remarks will find their way to ears which 
have always been deaf to the harsh sarcasms unseasoned by 
wit, which have been current on this topic. 

Our author too, notwithstanding his modest caveat, has 
acted upon his principles, and furnished a forcible illustration 
of their justice. For dignity of sentiment, for simplicity of 
manner, for truth to life, never infringing upon respect for 
the ideal, we look to such a critic, and we are not disap- 
pointed. 

The scene is laid in Ghent, in the fourteenth century. The 
Flemish mobocracy are brought before us with a fidelity and 
animation surpassing those displayed in Egmont. Their bar- 
barism, and the dissimilar, but not inferior barbarism of their 
would-be lords, the bold, bad men, the shameless crime and 
brainless tumult of those days, live before us. Amid these 
clashing elements moves Philip Van Artevelde, with the 
presence, not of a god, but of a great man, too superior to 
be shaken, too wise to be shocked by their rude jarrings. 
He becomes the leader of his people, and despite pestilence, 
famine, and their own untutored passions, he leads them on 
to victory and power. 

In the second part we follow Van Artevelde from his zenith 
of glory to his decline. The tarnishing influence of prosperity 
on his spirit, and its clear radiance again in adversity, are 
managed as the noble and well-defined conception of the 
character deserves. 

The boy king and his courtly, intriguing counsellors are 
as happily portrayed as Vaudaire and the fierce commonalty 
he ruled, or resisted with rope or sword, as the case might 
demand. 

The two loves of Van Artevelde are finely imagined, as 

types of the two states of his character. Both are lovely ; 

the one how elevated ! the other how pity-moving in her 

loveliness ! On the interlude of Elena we must be 

12* 



138 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

allowed to linger fondly, though the author's self condemn 
our taste. 

We are no longer partial to the machinery of portents and 
presentiments. Wallenstein's were the last we liked, but Van 
Artevelde's make good poetry, and have historical vouchers. 
They remind us of those of Fergus Mac Ivor. 

We shall extract a speech of Van Artevelde's, in which a 
leading idea of the work is expressed. 

Father, — 
So ! with the chivalry of Christendom 
I wage my war, — no nation for my friend, 
Yet in each nation having hosts of friends. 
The bondsmen of the world, that to their lords 
Are bound with chains of iron, unto me 
Are knit by their affections. Be it so. 
From kings and nobles will I seek no more 
Aid, friendship, or alliance. With the poor 
I make my treaty ; and the heart of man 
Sets the broad seal of its allegiance there, 
And ratifies the compact. Vassals, serfs, 
Ye that are bent with unrequited toil, 
Ye that have whitened in the dungeon's darkness, 
Through years that know not change of night nor day, 
Tatterdemalions, lodgers in the hedge, 
Lean beggars with raw backs, and rumbling maws, 
Whose poverty was whipped for starving you, — 
I hail you my auxiliars and allies, 
The only potentates whose help I crave ! 
Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw, 
But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark 
That set Jack Straw on fire. The spirit lives ; 
And as when he of Canterbury fell, 
His seat was filled by some no better clerk, 
So shall John Ball, that slew him, be replaced. 



PHILIP YAN ARTEYELDE. 139 

Fain would we extract Van Artevelde's reply to the French 
envoy — the oration of the dying Van den Bosch in the mar- 
ket-place of Ypres, the last scene between the hero and the 
double-dyed dastard and traitor, Sir Heurant of Heurlee, and 
many, many more, had we but space enough. 

We have purposely avoided telling the story, as is usual in 
an article of this kind, because we wish that every one should 
buy and read Van Artevelde, instead of resting content with 
the canvas side of the carpet. 

A few words more, and we shall conclude these, we fear, 
already too prolonged remarks. We would compare Mr. 
Taylor with the most applauded of living dramatists, the 
Italian Alessandro Manzoni. 

To wide and accurate historical knowledge, to purity of 
taste, to the greatest elevation of sentiment, Manzoni unites 
uncommon lyric power, and a beautiful style in the most 
beautiful language of the modern world. The conception 
of both his plays is striking, the detached beauties of thought 
and imagery are many ; but where are the life, the glow, the 
exciting march of action, the thorough display of character 
which charm us in Van Artevelde ? We live at Ghent and 
Senlis ; we think of Italy. Van Artevelde dies, — and our 
hearts die with him. When Elena says, "The body, — O !" 
we could echo that " long, funereal note," and weep as if the 
sun of heroic nobleness were quenched from our own horizon. 
" Carmagnola, Adelchis die," — we calmly shut the book, and 
think how much we have enjoyed it. Manzoni can deeply 
feel goodness and greatness, but he cannot localize them in 
the contours of life before our eyes. His are capital sketches, 
poems of a deep meaning, — but this, yes ! this is a drama. 

We cannot conclude more fitly, nor inculcate a precept on 
the reader more forcibly, than in Mr. Taylor's own words, 
with a slight alteration : " To say that I admire him is to 
admit that I owe him much ; for admiration is never thrown 
away upon the mind of him who feels it, except when it is 



140 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

misdirected or blindly indulged. There is perhaps nothing 
which more enlarges or enriches the mind than the disposi- 
tion to lay it genially open to impressions of pleasure, from 
the exercise of every species of talent ; nothing by which it 
is more impoverished than the habit of undue depreciation. 
What is puerile, pusillanimous, or wicked, it can do us no 
good to admire ; but let us admire all that can be admired 
without debasing the dispositions or stultifying the under- 
standing." 



UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 

Slight as the intercourse held by the Voyager with the 
South Sea Islands is, his narrative is always more prized by 
us than those of the missionary and traders, who, though they 
have better opportunity for full and candid observation, rarely 
use it so well, because their minds are biased towards their 
special objects. It is deeply interesting to us to know how 
much and how little God has accomplished for the various 
nations of the larger portion of the earth, before they are 
brought into contact with the civilization of Europe and the 
Christian religion. To suppose it so little as most people do, 
is to impugn the justice of Providence. We see not how any 
one can contentedly think that such vast multitudes of living 
souls have been left for thousands of years without manifold 
and great means of instruction and happiness. To appreciate 
justly how much these have availed them, to know how far 
they are competent to receive new benefits, is essential to the 
philanthropist as a means of aiding them, no less than it is 
important to the philosopher who wishes to see the universe 
as God made it, not as some men think he ought to have 
made it. 

The want of correct knowledge, and a fair appreciation of 
the uncultivated man as he stands, is a cause why even the 
good and generous fail to aid him, and contact with Europe 
has proved so generally more of a curse than a blessing. It 
is easy enough to see why our red man, to whom the white 
extends the Bible or crucifix with one hand, and the rum- 
bottle with the other, should look upon Jesus as only one 
more Manitou, and learn nothing from his precepts or the 

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142 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

civilization connected with them. The Hindoo, the South 
American Indian, who knew their teachers first as powerful 
robbers, and found themselves called upon to yield to violence 
not only their property, personal freedom, and peace, but also 

the convictions and ideas that had been rooted and growing in 
their race for ages, could not be otherwise than degraded and 
Stupefied by a change effected through such violence and con- 
vulsion. But not only those who came with fire and sword, 
crying, " Believe or die ; " " Understand or we will scourge 
you ; " " Understand and we will only plunder and tyrannize 
over you," — not only these ignorant despots, self-deceiving 
robbers, have failed to benefit the people they dared esteem 
more savage than themselves, but the worthy and generous 
have failed from want of patience and an expanded intelli- 
gence. Would you speak to a man ? first learn his language. 
Would you have the tree grow? learn the nature of the soil 
and climate in which you plant it. Better days are coming, 
we do hope, as to these matters — days in which the new 
shall be harmonized with the old, rather than violently rent 
asunder from it; when progress shall be accomplished by 
gentle evolution, as the stem of the plant grows up, rather 
than by the blasting of rocks, and blindness or death of the 
miners. 

The knowledge which can lead to such results must be col- 
lected, as all true knowledge is, from the love of it. In the 
healthy state of the mind, the state of elastic youth, which 
would be perpetual in the mind if it were nobly disciplined 
and animated by immortal hopes, it likes to learn just how the 
facts are, seeking truth for its own sake, not doubting that the 
design and cause will be made clear in time. A mind in such 
a state will find many facts ready for its use in these volumes 
relative to the South Sea Islanders, and other objects of 
interest. 



STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER. 

Does any shame still haunt the age of bronze — a shame, 
the lingering blush of an heroic age, at being caught in doing 
any thing merely for amusement? Is there a public still 
extant which needs to excuse its delinquencies by the story 
of a man who liked to lie on the sofa all day and read novels, 
though he could, at time of need, write the gravest didactics ? 
Live they still, those reverend seigniors, the object of secret 
smiles to our childish years, who were obliged to apologize 
for midnight oil spent in conning story-books by the " historic 
bearing " of the novel, or the " correct and admirable descrip- 
tions of certain countries, with climate, scenery, and manners 
therein contained," wheat, for which they, industrious students, 
were willing to winnow bushels of frivolous love-adventures ? 
We know not, but incline to think the world is now given 
over to frivolity so far as to replace by the novel the min- 
strel's ballad, the drama, and even those games of agility and 
strength in which it once sought pastime. For, indeed, mere 
pass-time is sometimes needed ; the nursery legend comprised 
a primitive truth of the understanding and the wisdom of na- 
tions in the lines, — 

" All play and no ^ork makes Jack a mere toy, 
But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." 

We have reversed the order of arrangement to suit our 
present purpose. For we, O useful reader! being ourselves 
so far of the useful class as to be always wanted somewhere, 
have also to fight a good light for our amusements, either 
with the foils of excuse, like the reverend seigniors above 

(143) 



144 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

mentioned, or with the sharp weapons of argument, or main- 
tenanee of a view of our own without argument, which we 
take to be the sharpest weapon of all. 

Thus far do we defer to the claims of the human race, with 
its myriad of useful errands to be done, that we read most of 
our novels in the long sunny days, which call all beings to 
chirp and nestle, or fly abroad as the birds do, and permit the 
very oxen to ruminate gently in the just-mown fields. 

On such days it was well, we think, to read u Sybil, or the 
Two "Worlds." We have always felt great interest in D'lsra- 
eli. He is one of the many who share the difficulty of our 
era, which Carlyle says, quoting, we believe, from his Master, 
consists in unlearning the false in order to arrive at the true. 
We think these men, when they have once taken their degree, 
can be of far greater use to their brethren than those who 
have always kept their instincts unperverted. 

In " Vivian Grey," the young D'Israeli, an educated Eng- 
lishman, but with the blood of sunnier climes glowing and 
careering in his veins, gave us the very flower and essence of 
factitious life. That book sparkled and frothed like cham- 
pagne ; like that, too, it produced no dull and imbecile state 
by its intoxication, but one witty, genial, spiritual even. A 
deep, soft melancholy thrilled through its gay mockeries ; the 
eyes of nature glimmered through the painted mask, and a 
nobler ambition was felt beneath the follies of petty success 
and petty vengeance. Still, the chief merit of the book, as a 
book, was the light and decided touch with which its author 
took up the follies and poesies of the day, and brought them 
all before us. The excellence of the foreign part, with its 
popular superstitions, its deep passages in the glades of the 
summer woods, and above all, the capital sketch of the prime 
minister with his original whims and secret history of roman- 
tic sorrows, were beyond the appreciation of most readers. 

Since then, DTsraeli has never written any tiling to be 
compared with this first jet of the fountain of his mind in the 



STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER. 145 

sunlight of morning. The " Young Duke " was full of bril- 
liant sketches, and showed a soul struggling, blinded by the 
gaudy mists of fashion, for realities. The " Wondrous Tale 
of Alroy " showed great power of conception, though in exe- 
cution it is a failure. " Henrietta Temple " Mr. Willis, with 
his usual justness of perception, has praised, as containing a 
collection of the best love-letters ever written ; and which 
show that excellence, signal and singular among the literary 
tribe, of which DTsraeli never fails, of daring to write a thing 
down exactly as it rises in his mind. 

Now he has come to be a leader of Young England, and a 
rooted plant upon her soil. If the performance of his prime 
do not entirely correspond with the brilliant lights of its dawn, 
it is yet aspiring, and with a large kernel of healthy nobleness 
in it. D' Israeli shows now not only the heart, but the soul of 
a man. He cares for all men ; he wishes to care wisely for all. 

" Coningsby " was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in 
this aspiration after reality, and the rich materials taken from 
contemporary life. There is nothing in it good after the origi- 
nal manner of DTsraeli, except the sketches of Eton, and 
above all, the noble schoolboy's letter. The picture of the 
Jew, so elaborately limned, is chiefly valuable as affording 
keys to so many interesting facts. 

" Sybil" is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the la- 
boring classes, and investigate the duties of those in whose 
hands the money is at present, towards the rest. It comes to 
no result : it only exhibits some truths in a more striking light 
than heretofore. DTsraeli shows the taint of old prejudice 
in the necessity he felt to marry the daughter of the people to 
one not of the people. Those worthy to be distinguished must 
still have good blood, or rather old blood, for what is called 
good needs now to be renovated from a homelier source. But 
his leaders must have old blood ; the fresh ichor, the direct 
flow from heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the 
deeds now needed. 
13 



146 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf 
of our favorite idea that a leading feature of the new era will 
be in new and higher developments of the feminine character. 
He looks at women as a man does who is truly in love. lie 
does not paint them well, that is, not with profound fidelity to 
nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for they are to him 
the inspirers and representatives of what is holy, tender, and 
simply great. 

There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not 
the overseers, but the real makers. 

Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer 
notions of what he wants. His " De Rohan " is a poor book, 
though it contains some things excellent. But it is faulty, — 
even more so than is usual with him, in heavy exaggerations, 
and is less redeemed by brilliant effects, good schemes, and 
lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis XIV. 
is defeated by the hatred with which the character inspired 
him, the liberal of the nineteenth century. The Grand 
Monarque was really brutally selfish and ignorant, as Sue 
represents him ; but then there was a native greatness which 
justified, in some degree, the illusion he diffused, and which 
falsifies all Sue's representation. It is not by an inventory 
of facts or traits that what is most vital in character, and 
which makes its due impression on contemporaries, can be 
apprehended or depicted. " De Rohan " is worth reading for 
particulars of an interesting period, put together with accuracy 
and with a sense of physiological effects, if not of the spiritual 
realities that they represented. 

" Self, by the Author of Cecil," is one of the worst of a 
paltry class of novels — those which aim at representing the 
very dregs in a social life, now at its lowest ebb. If it has 
produced a sensation, that only shows the poverty of life 
among those who can be interested in it. I have known more 
life lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village school, 
than informs these volumes, with all their great pretension 



STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER. 147 

and affected vivacity. It is not worth our while to read this 
class of English novels; they are far worse than the French, 
morally as well as mentally. This has no merits as to the 
development of character or exposition of motives ; it is a 
poor, external, lifeless thing. 

" Dashes at Life," by N. P. Willis. The life of Mr. Willis 
is too European for him to have a general or permanent fame 
in America. We need a life of our own, and a literature of 
our own. Those writers who are dearest to us, and really 
most interesting, are those who are at least rooted to the soil. 
If they are not great enough to be the prophets of the new 
era, they at least exhibit the features of their native clime, 
and the complexion given by its native air. But Mr. Willis 
is a son of Europe, and his writings can interest only the 
fashionable world of this country, which, by imitating Europe, 
fails entirely of a genius, grace, and invention of its own. 
Still, in their way, they are excellent. They are most lively 
pictures, showing the fine natural organization of the writer, 
on whom none, the slightest symptom of what he is looking 
for, is thrown away ; sparkling with bold, light wit, succinct, 
and colored with glow, and for a full light. Some of them 
were new to us, and we read them through, missing none of 
the words, and laughed with a full heart, and without one 
grain of complaisance, which is much, very much, to say in 
these days. We said these sketches would not have a perma- 
nent fame, and yet we may be wrong. The new, full, original, 
radiant, American life may receive them as an heirloom 
from this transition state we are in now, and future generations 
may stare at the mongrel products of Saratoga, and maidens 
still laugh till they cry at the " Letter of Jane S. to her Spirit- 
Bridegroom." 

All these story-books show, even to the languor of the hot- 
test day, the solemn signs of revolution. Life has become too 
factitious ; it has no longer a leg left to stand upon, and can- 
not b,e carried much farther in this way. England — ah ! who 



148 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

can resist visions of phalansteries in every park, and the 
treasures of art turned into public galleries for the use of the 
artificers who will no longer be unwashed, but raised and 
educated by the refinements of sufficient leisure, and the in- 
structions of genius. England must glide, or totter, or fall 
into revolution ; there is not room for such selfish elves, 
and unique young dukes, in a country sp crowded with men, 
and with those who ought to be women, and are turned into 
work tools. There are very impressive hints on this last topic 
in " Sybil, or the Two Worlds," (of the rich and poor.) God 
has time to remember the design with which he made this 
world also. 



SHELLEY'S POEMS* 

We are very glad to see this handsome copy of Shelley 
ready for those who have long been vainly inquiring at all the 
bookstores for such a one. 

In Europe the fame of Shelley has risen superior to the 
clouds that darkened its earlier days, hiding his true image 
from his fellow-men, and from his own sad eyes oftentimes 
the common light of day. As a thinker, men have learned 
to pardon what they consider errors in opinion for the sake 
of singular nobleness, purity, and love in his main tendency or 
spirit. As a poet, the many faults of his works having been 
acknowledged, there are room and place to admire his far more 
numerous and exquisite beauties. 

The heart of the man, few, who have hearts of their own, 
refuse to reverence, and many, even of devoutest Christians, 
would not refuse the book which contains Queen Mab as a 
Christmas gift. For it has been recognized that the founder 
of the Christian church would have suffered one to come 
unto him, who was in faith and love so truly what he sought 
in a disciple, without regard to the form his doctrine assumed. 

The qualities of his poetry have often been analyzed, and 
the severer critics, impatient of his exuberance, or unable to 
use their accustomed spectacles in the golden mist that broods 
over all he has done, deny him high honors ; but the soul of 
aspiring youth, untrammelled by the canons of taste, and un- 
tamed by scholarly discipline, swells into rapture at his lyric 
sweetness, finds ambrosial refreshment from his plenteous 

* The Poetical Works of Percy Bysche Shelley. First American edition, 
(complete.) With a Biographical and Critical Notice, by G. G. Foster. 
13 * (149) 



150 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

fancies, catches fire at his daring thought, and melts into 
boundless weeping at his tender sadness — the sadness of a 
soul betrothed to an ideal unattainable in this present sphere. 

For ourselves, we dispute not with the doctrinaires or the 
critics. We cannot speak dispassionately of an influence that 
has been so dear to us. Nearer than the nearest companions 
of life actual has Shelley been to us. Many other great ones 
have shone upon us, and all who ever did so shine are still 
resplendent in our firmament, for our mental life has not been 
broken and contradictory, but thus far we " see what we fore- 
saw." But Shelley seemed to us an incarnation of what was 
sought in the sympathies and desires of instinctive life, a light 
of dawn, and a foreshowing of the weather of this day. 

"When still in childish years, the " Hymn to Intellectual 
Beauty " fell in our way. In a green meadow, skirted by a 
rich wood, watered by a lovely rivulet, made picturesque by 
a mill a little farther down, sat a party of young persons 
gayer than, and almost as inventive, as those that told the tales 
recorded by Boccaccio. They were passing a few days in a 
scene of deep seclusion, there uncared for by tutor or duenna, 
and with no bar of routine to check the pranks of their gay, 
childish fancies. Every day they assumed parts which through 
the waking hours must be acted out. One day it was the 
characters in one of Richardson's novels ; and most solemnly 
we "my deared" each other with richest brocade of affability, 
and interchanged in long, stiff phrase our sentimental secrets 
and prim opinions. But to-day we sought relief in person- 
ating birds or insects ; and now it was the Libellula who, tired 
of wild flitting and darting, rested on the grassy bank and 
read aloud the " Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," torn by 
chance from the leaf of a foreign magazine. 

It was one of those chances which we ever remember as 
the interposition of some good angel in our fate. Solemn 
tears marked the change of mood in our little party, and with 
the words 

M Have I not kept my vcm } " 



shelley's poems. 151 

began a chain of thoughts whose golden links still bind the 
years together. 

Two or three years passed. The frosty Christmas season 
came ; the trees cracked with their splendid burden of ice, the 
old wooden country house was banked up with high drifts of the 
beautiful snow, and the Libellula became the owner of Shel- 
ley's Poems. It was her Christmas gift, and for three days 
and three nights she ceased not to extract its sweets ; and how 
familiar still in memory every object seen from the chair in 
which she sat enchanted during those three days, memorable 
to her as those of July to the French nation ! The fire, the 
position of the lamp, the variegated shadows of that alcoved 
room, the bright stars up to which she looked with such a feel- 
ing of congeniality from the contemplation of this starry soul, 
— O, could but a De Quincey describe those days in which the 
bridge between the real and ideal rose unbroken ! He would 
not do it, though, as Suspiria de Profundis, but as sighs of 
joy upon the mountain height. 

The poems we read then are what every one still reads, the 
" Julian and Maddalo," with its profound revelations of the 
inward life ; " Alastor," the soul sweeping like a breeze 
through nature ; and some of the minor poems. " Queen 
Mab," the " Prometheus," and other more formal works we 
have not been able to read much. It was not when he tried 
to express opinions which the wrongs of the world had put 
into his head, but when he abandoned himself to the feelings 
which nature had implanted in his own breast, that Shelley 
seemed to us so full of inspiration, and it is so still. 

In reply to all that can be urged against him by people of 
whom we do not wish to speak ill, — for surely " they know not 
what they do," — we are wont simply to refer to the fact that he 
was the only man who redeemed the human race from suspieion 
to the embittered soul of Byron. " Why," said .\ ron, " I 
man who would willingly die for others. I am sure or' it." 

Yes ! balance that against all the ill you can think of him. 



152 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

that he was a man able to live wretched for the sake of speak- 
ing sincerely what he supposed to be truth, willing to die for 
the good of his fellows ! 

Mr. Foster has spoken well of him as a man : " Of Shel- 
ley's personal character it is enough to say that it was wholly 
pervaded by the same unbounded and unquestioning love for 
his fellow-men — the same holy and fervid hope in their ulti- 
mate virtue and happiness — the same scorn of baseness and 
hatred of oppression — which beam forth in all his writings 
with a pure and constant light. The theory which he wrote 
was the practice w r hich his whole life exemplified. Noble, 
kind, generous, passionate, tender, with a courage greater than 
the courage of the chief of warriors, for it could endure — 
these were the qualities in which his life was embalmed." 



FESTUS.* 

We are right glad to see this beloved stranger domesticated 
among us. Yet there are queer little circumstances that 
herald the introduction. The poet is a barrister at law ! — 
well ! it is always worthy of note when a man is not hindered 
by study of human law from knowledge of divine ; which 
last is all that concerns the poet. Then the preface to the 
American edition closes with this discreet remark : " It is 
perfectly safe to pronounce it (the poem) one of the most 
powerful and splendid productions of the age." Dear New 
England ! how purely that was worthy thee, region where the 
tyranny of public opinion is carried to a perfection of minute 
scrutiny beyond what it ever was before in any age or place, 
though the ostracism be administered with the mildness and 
refinement fit for this age. Dear New England ! yes ! it is 
safe to say that the poem is good; whatever Mrs. Grundy 
may think, she will not have it burned by the hangman if it is 
not. But it may not be discreet, because she can, if she sees 
fit, exile its presence from bookstores, libraries, centre tables, 
and all mention of its existence from lips polite, and of thine 
also, who hast dared to praise it, on peril of turning all sur- 
rounding eyes to lead by its utterance. This kind of gentle 
excommunication thou mayst not be prepared to endure, O 
preface-writer ! And we should greatly fear that thou wert 
deceived in thy fond security, for " Festus " is a bold book — 
in respect of freedom of words, a boldest book — also it re- 
veals the solitudes of hearts with unexampled sincerity, and 

* Festus : A Poem, by Philip James BaiW. First American edition, 
Boston. 

(163) 



154 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

remorselessly lays bare human nature in its naked truth — 
but for the theology of the book. That may save it, and 
none the less for all it shows of the depravity of human na- 
ture. It is through many pages and leaves what is techni- 
cally praised as "a serious book." A friend went into a 
bookstore to select presents for persons with whom she was 
about to part, and among other things requested the shopman 
to " show her some serious books in handsome binding." He 
looked into several, and then, struck by passages here and 
there, offered her the " Letters of Lady M. W. Montague." 
She assuring him that it would not be safe to make use 
of this work, he offered her a miniature edition of Shak- 
speare, as " a book containing many excellent things, though 
you had to w r ade through a great deal of rubbish to get at 
them." 

We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of 
" rubbish " in " Festus " before he gets at the theology. How- 
ever, there it is, in sufficient quantities to give dignity to any 
book. In seriousness, it may compete with Pollok's * Course 
of Time." In " splendor and power," we feel ourselves safe 
in saying that, as sure as the sun shines, it cannot be outdone 
in the English tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is 
something for all classes of readers, and we hope it will get 
to their eyes, albeit Boston books are not likely to be detected 
by all eyes to which they belong. 

To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious 
design of the poem, have little interest. They seem to us. like 
the color of his skin and hair, the result of the circumstances 
under which he was born. Certain opinions came in his way 
early, and became part of the body of his thought. But what 
interests us is not these, but what is deepest, universal — the 
goul of that body. To us the poem is 

"... full of great dark meanings like the sea ; " 






FESTUS. 155 

and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the 
immortal man, that engage us. 

Even the proem shows how large is his nature — its most 
careless utterance full of grandeur, its tamest of bold noble- 
ness. This, that truly engages us, he spoke of more forcibly 
when the book first went forth to the world : — 

" Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee, 
But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired ; 
Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired, 
Like blood to his heart. The course of study he 
Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree 
He took was high ; it was wise wretchedness. 
He suffered perfectly, and gained no less 
A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see 
A few bright seeds ; he sowed them, hoped them truth. 
The autumn of that seed is in these pages." 

Such is, in our belief, the true theologian, the learner of 
God, who does not presumptuously expect at this period of 
growth to bind down all that is to be known of divine things 
in a system, a set of words, but considers that he is only spell- 
ing the first lines of a work, whose perusal shall last him 
through eternity. Such a one is not in a hurry to declare 
that the riddles of Fate and of Time are solved, for he knows 
it is not calling them so that will make them so. His soul 
does not decline the great and persevering labors that are to 
develop its energies. He has faith to study day by day. 
Such is the practice of the author of Festus, whenever he is 
truly great. When he shows to us the end and plan of all 
things, we feel that he only hides them from us. He speaks 
only his wishes. But when he tells us of what he does really 
know, the moods and aspirations of fiery youth to which all 
things are made present in foresight and foretaste, — when he 
shows us the temptations of the lonely soul pining for knowl- 



156 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

edge, but unable to feel the love that alone can bestow it, — 
then he is truly great, and the strings of life thrill oftentimes 
to their sublimest, sweetest music. 

We admire in this author the unsurpassed force and dis- 
tinctness with which he casts out single thoughts and images. 
Each is thrown before us fresh, deep in its impress as if just 
snatched from the forge. We admire not less his vast flow, 
his sustained flight. His is a rich and spacious genius ; it 
gives us room ; it is a palace home ; we need not econo- 
mize our joys ; blessed be the royalty that welcomes us so 
freely. 

In simple transposition of the thought from the mind to the 
paper, that wonder, even rarer than perfect, — that is, simple 
expression, through the motions of the body, of the motions 
of the soul, — we dare to say no writer excels him. Words 
are no veil between us and him, but a luminous cloud that 
upbears us both together. 

So in touches of nature, in the tones of passion ; he is abso- 
lute. There is nothing better, where it is good ; we have the 
very thing itself. 

We are told by the critics that he has no ear, and, indeed, 
when we listen for such, we perceive blemishes enough in the 
movement of his line. But we did not perceive it before, 
more than, when the JEolian was telling the secrets of that 
most spirit-like minister of Nature that bloweth where it 
listeth, and no man can trace it, we should attempt to divide 
the tones and pauses into regular bars, and be disturbed when 
we could not make a tune. 

England has only two poets now that can be named near 
him : these two are Tennyson and the author of" Philip Van 
Artevelde." Tennyson is all that Bailey is not in melody and 
voluntary finish, having no less than a Greek moderation in 
declining all undertakings he is not sure of completing. Tay- 
lor, noble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what he sees, 
firm and sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy 



FESTUS. 157 

and grandeur no more than Tennyson to be named beside the 
author of Festus. In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes 
of the sacred fire which reveal the secret places where Time 
is elaborating the marvels of Nature, he stands alone. It is 
just true what Ebenezer Elliott says, that " Festus contains 
poetry enough to set up fifty poets," — ay ! even such poets, 
so far as richness of thought and imagery are concerned, as 
the two noble bards we have named. 

But we need call ngne less to make him greater, whose 
liberal soul is alive to every shade of beauty, every token of 
greatness, and whose main stress is to seek a soul of good- 
ness in things evil. The book is a precious, even a sacred 
book, and we could say more of it, had we not years ago 
vented our enthusiasm when it was in first full flow. 
14 



FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.* 

We hear much lamentation among good people at the in- 
troduction of so many French novels among us, corrupting, 
they say, our youth by pictures of decrepit vice and prurient 
crime, such as would never, otherwise, be dreamed of here, 
and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so preco- 
cious — for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply 
injured by initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not 
only robbed of his virtue, but prevented from developing the 
strength that might restore it. But it is useless to bewail 
what is the inevitable result of the movement of our time. 
Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her riches, on 
our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She 
cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hither- 
ward ; no defences are possible, on our vast extent of shore, 
that can preclude their ingress. We have exulted in prema- 
ture and hasty growth ; we must brace ourselves to bear the 
evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in rousing, in our own 
community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, that shall 
give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to better 
substance, or cast off its contaminations. A mighty sea of 
life swells within our nation, and, if there be salt enough, 
foreign bodies shall not have power to breed infection 
there. 

We have had some opportunity to observe that the worst 
works offered are rejected. On the steamboats we have seen 
translations of vile books, bought by those who did not know 

* Balzac, Eugene Sue, De Yigiiy. 

(158) 



FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY. 159 

from the names of their authors what to expect, torn, after a 
cursory glance at their contents, and scattered to the winds. 
Not even the all bat all-powerful desire to get one's money's 
worth, since it had once been paid, could contend against the 
blush of shame that rose on the cheek of the reader. 

It would be desirable for our people to know something of 
these writers, and of the position they occupy abroad ; for the 
nature of their circulation, rather than its extent, might be 
the guide both to translator and buyer. The object of the 
first is generally money ; of the last, amusement. But the 
merest mercenary might prefer to pass his time in trans- 
lating a good book, and our imitation of Europe does not 
yet go so far that the American milliner can be depended 
on to copy any thing from the Parisian grisette, except 
her cap. 

We have just been reading " Le Pere Goriot," Balzac's 
most celebrated work ; a remarkable production, to which 
Paris alone, at the present day, could have given birth. 

In other of his works, I have admired his skill in giving 
the minute traits of passion, and his intrepidity, not inferior 
to that of Le Sage and Cervantes, in facing the dark side of 
human nature. He reminds one of the Spanish romancers 
in the fearlessness with which he takes mud into his hands, 
and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when 
done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and 
gayety; but Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a 
Spaniard. 

But the conception of this work is so sublime, that, though 
the details are even more revolting than in his others, you 
can bear it, and would not have missed your walk through 
the Catacombs, though the light of day seems stained after- 
wards with the mould of horror and dismay. 

Balzac, we understand, is one of that wretched class of 
writers who live by the pen. In Paris they count now by 
thousands, and their leaves fall from the press thick-rustling 



160 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

like the November forest. I had heard of this class not with- 
out envy, for I had been told pretty tales of the gay poverty 
of the Frenchman — how he will live in garrets, on dry bread, 
salad, and some wine, and spend all his money on a single 
good suit of clothes, in which, when the daily labor of copy- 
ing music, correcting the press, or writing poems or novel-, is 
over, he sallies forth to enjoy the theatre, the social soiree, or 
the humors of the streets and cafes, as gay, as keenly alive to 
observation and enjoyment, as if he were to return to a well- 
stocked table and a cheerful hearth, encompassed by happy 
faces. 

I thought the intellectual Frenchman, in the extreme of 
want, never sunk into the inert reverie of the lazzaroni, nor 
hid the vulture of famine beneath the mantle of pride with 
the bitter mood of a Spaniard. But Balzac evidently is 
familiar with that which makes the agony of poverty — its 
vulgarity. 

Dirt, confusion, shabby expedients, living to live, — these 
are what make poverty terrible and odious, and in these Balzac 
would seem to have been steeped to the very lips. 

These French writers possess the art of plunging at once 
in medias res, and Balzac places you, in the twinkling of an 
eye, in one of the lowest boarding-houses of Paris. At first 
all is dirt, hubbub, and unsavory odors; but from the report 
of the caldron evolves a web of many-colored life, of terrible 
pathos, and original humor, not unenlivened by pale golden 
threads of beauty, which had better never been. 

All the characters are excellently drawn : the harpy mis- 
tress of the house; Mile. Michonnet the spy, and her imbecile 
lover; Mme. Coutuner, with her purblind strivings after 
virtue, and her real, though meagre respectability ; Vautrim, 
the disguised galley-slave, with his cynical philosophy and 
Bonaparte character; and the young students of medicine, 
cheering the dense fog with the scintillations of their wit, and 



FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY. 161 

the joyousness and petulance with which their age meets the 
most adverse circumstances, at least in France ! 

The connection between this abject poverty and the highest 
luxury of Parisian life is made naturally by Eugene, con- 
nected to his misfortune with a noble family, of which his 
own is a poor and young branch, studying a profession and 
sighing to live like a duke, and Le Pere Goriot, who has 
stripped himself of all his wealth for his daughters, who are 
more naturally unnatural than those of Lear. The transitions 
are made with as much swiftness as a curtain is drawn upon 
the stage, yet with no feeling of abruptness, so skilfully are 
the incidents woven into one another. 

And be it recorded to the credit of Balzac, that, much as 
he appears to have suffered from the want of wealth, the vices 
which pollute it are represented with as terrible force as those 
of poverty. 

The book affords play for similar powers, and brings a 
similar range of motives into action with Scott's " Fortunes of 
Nigel." If less rich than that work, it is more original, and 
has a force of pencil all its own. 

Insight and a master's hand are admirable throughout ; but 
the product of genius is Le Pere Goriot. And, wonderful to 
relate, this character is as much ennobled, made as poetical 
by abandonment to a single instinct, as others by the force of 
will. Prometheus, chained on his rock, and giving his heart 
to the birds of prey for aims so majestic, is scarcely a more 
affecting, a more reverent object, than the rich confectioner 
whose intellect has never been awakened at all, except in the 
way of buying and selling, and who gives up his acutrne-> 
even there, and commits such unspeakable follies through 
paternal love ; a blind love too, nowise superior to that of the 
pelican ! 

Analyze it as you will, see the difference between this and 
the instinct of the artist or the philanthropist, and it produces 
on your mind the same impression of a present divinity. And 
14* 



162 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

scarce any tears could be more sacred than those which choke 
the breath at the death-bed of this man, who forgot that he 
was a man, to be wholly a father, this poor, mad, stupid, father 
Goriot. I know nothing in fiction to surpass the terrible, un- 
pretending pathos of this scene, nor the power with which the 
mistaken benediction given to the two medical students whom 
he takes for his daughters, is redeemed from burlesque. 

The scepticism as to virtue in this book is fearful, but the 
love for innocence and beautiful instincts casts a softening tint 
over the gloom. We never saw any thing sweeter or more 
natural than the letters of the mother and sisters of Eugene, 
when they so delightfully sent him the money of which lie 
had been wicked enough to plunder them. These traits of 
domestic life are given with much grace and delicacy of sen- 
timent. 

How few writers can paint abandon, without running into 
exaggeration ! and here the task was one of peculiar difficulty. 
It seemed as if the writer were conscious enough of his power 
to propose to himself the most difficult task he could un< let- 
take. 

A respectable reviewer in " Les Deux Mondes " would 
wish us to think that there is no life in Paris like what Balzac 
paints ; but we can never believe that : evidently it is " too 
true," though we doubt not there is more redemption than 
he sees. 

But this book was too much for our nerves, and would be, 
probably, for those of most people accustomed to breathe a 
healthier atmosphere. 

Balzac has been a very fruitful writer, and, as he is fond of 
jugglers' tricks of every description, and holds nothing earnest 
or sacred, he is vain of the wonderful celerity with which 
some of his works, and those quite as good as any, have been 
written. They seem to have been conceived, composed, and 
written down with that degree of speed with which it is pos- 
sible to lay pen to paper. Indeed, we think he cannot be 



FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY. 163 

surpassed in the ready and sustained command of his resources. 
His almost unequalled quickness and fidelity of eye, both as 
to the disposition of external objects, and the symptoms of 
human passion, combined with a strong memory, have filled 
his mind with materials, and we doubt not that if his thoughts 
could be put into writing with the swiftness of thought, he 
would give us one of his novels every week in the year. 

Here end our praises of Balzac ; what he is, as a man, in 
daily life, we know not. He must originally have had a heart, 
or he could not read so well the hearts of others ; perhaps 
there are still private ties that touch him. But as a writer, 
never was the modern Mephistopheles, " the spirit that deni- 
eth," more worthily represented than by Balzac. 

He combines the spirit of the man of science with that of 
the amateur collector. He delights to analyze, to classify; 
there is no anomaly too monstrous, no specimen too revolt- 
ing, to insure his ardent but passionless scrutiny. But then 
he has taste and judgment to know what is fair, rare, and 
exquisite. He takes up such an object carefully, and puts it 
in a good light. But he has no hatred for what is loathsome, 
no contempt for what is base, no love for what is lovely, no 
faith in what is noble. To him there is no virtue and no 
vice ; men and women are more or less finely organized ; no- 
ble and tender conduct is more agreeable than the reverse, 
because it argues better health ; that is all. 

Nor is this from an intellectual calmness, nor from an unu- 
sual power of analyzing motives, and penetrating delusions 
merely ; neither is it mere indifference. There is a touch of 
the demon, also, in Balzac, the cold but gayly familiar demon ; 
and the smile of the amateur yields easily to a sneer, as he 
delights to show you on what foul juices the fail flower was 
fed. He is a thorough and willing materialist. The trance 
of religion is congestion of the brain; the joy of the poet the 
thrilling of the blood in the rapture of sense ; and every 
good not only rises from, but hastens back into, the jaws of 



164 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

death and nothingness ; a rainbow arch above a pestilential 
chaos ! 

Thus Balzac, with all his force and fulness of talent, never 
rises one moment into the region of genius. For genius is, in 
its nature, positive and creative, and cannot exist where there 
is no heart to believe in realities. Neither can he have a per- 
manent influence on a nature which is not thoroughly corrupt. 
He might for a while stagger an ingenuous mind which had 
not yet thought for itself. But this could not last. His un- 
belief makes his thought too shallow. He has not that power 
which a mind, only in part sophisticated, may retain, where 
the heart still beats warmly, though it sometimes beats amiss. 
Write, paint, argue, as you will, where there is a sound spot 
in any human being, he cannot be made to believe that this 
present bodily frame is more than a temporary condition of 
his being, though one to which he may have become shame- 
fully enslaved by fault of inheritance, education, or his own 
carelessness. 

Taken in his own way, we know no modern tragedies more 
powerful than Balzac's " Eugenie Grandet," " Sweet Pea," 
" Search after the Absolute," " Father Goriot." See there 
goodness, aspiration, the loveliest instincts, stifled, strangled 
by fate, in the form of our own brute nature. The fate of the 
ancient Prometheus was happiness to that of these, who must 
pay, for ever having believed there was divine tire in heaven, 
by agonies of despair, and conscious degradation, unknown to 
those who began by believing man to be the most richly 
endowed of brutes — no more ! 

Balzac is admirable in his description of look, tone, gesture. 
He has a kein sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual. 
Nothing in modern romance surpasses the death-scene of 
Father Goriot, the Parisian Lear, in the almost immortal life 
With which the parental instincts are displayed. And with 
equal precision and delicacy of shading he will paint the 
slightest by-play in the manners of some young girl. 



FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAT. 165 

" Seraphitus " is merely a specimen of his great powers of 
intellectual transposition. Amid his delight at the botanical 
riches of the new and elevated region in which he is travelling, 
we catch, if only by echo, the hem and chuckle of the French 
materialist. 

No more of him ! — We leave him to his suicidal work. 

It is cheering to know how great is the influence such a 
writer as Sue exerts, from his energy of feeling on some sub- 
jects of moral interest. It is true that he has also much talent 
and a various experience of life ; but writers who far surpass 
him here, as we think Balzac does, wanting this heart of 
faith, have no influence, except merely on the tastes of their 
readers. 

We observe, in a late notice of Sue, that he began to write 
at quite mature age, at the suggestion of a friend. We should 
think it was so ; that he was by nature intended for a prac- 
tical man, rather than a writer. He paints all his characters 
from the practical point of view. 

As an observer, when free from exaggeration, he has as 
good an eye as Balzac, but he is far more rarely thus free, 
for, in temperament, he is unequal and sometimes muddy. 
But then he has the heart and faith that Balzac wants, yet is 
less enslaved by emotion than Sand ; therefore he has made 
more impression on his time and place than either. We refer 
now to his later works ; though his earlier show much talent, 
yet his progress, both as a writer and thinker, has been so 
considerable that those of the last few years entirely eclipse 
his earlier essays. 

These latter works are the " Mysteries of Paris," " Matilda." 
and the " Wandering Jew," which is now in course of publica- 
tion. In these, he has begun, and is continuing, a crusade 
against the evils of a corrupt civilization which are inflicting 
such woes and wrongs upon his contemporaries. 

Sue, however, does not merely assail, but would build up. 
His anatomy is not intended to injure the corpse, or, like that 



166 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

of Balzac, to entertain the intellectual merely. Earnestly he 
hopes to learn from it the remedies for disease and the condi- 
tions of health. Sue is a Socialist. He believes he Bees the 
means by which the heart of mankind may be made to beat 
with one great hope, one love ; and instinct with this thought, 
his tales of horror are not tragedies. 

This is the secret of the deep interest he has awakened in 
this country, that he shares a hope which is, half unconsciously 
to herself, stirring all her veins. It is not so warmly out- 
spoken as in other lands, both because no such pervasive ills 
as yet call loudly for redress, and because private conserva- 
tism is here great, in proportion to the absence of authorized 
despotism. We are not disposed to quarrel with this ; it is 
well for the value of new thoughts to be tested by a good deal 
of resistance. Opposition, if it does not preclude free discus- 
sion, is of use in educating men to know what they want. 
Only by intelligent men, exercised by thought and tried in 
virtue, can such measures as Sue proposes be carried out ; 
and when such associates present themselves in sufficient 
numbers, we have no fear but the cause of association, in its 
grander forms, will have fair play in America. 

As a writer, Sue shows his want of a high kind of imagina- 
tion by his unshrinking portraiture of physical horrors. We 
do not believe any man could look upon some things he de- 
scribes and live. He is very powerful in his description of 
the workings of animal nature ; especially when he speaks 
of them in animals merely, they have the simplicity of the 
lower kind with the more full expression of human nature. 
His pictures of women are of rare excellence, and it is obser- 
vable that the more simple and pure the character is, the more 
justice he does to it. This shows that, whatever his career 
may have been, his heart is uncontaminated. Men he does 
not describe so well, and fails entirely when he aims at one 
grand and simple enough for a great moral agent. His con- 
ceptions are strong, but in execution he is too melodramatic. 



FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY. 167 

Just compare his " Wandering Jew " with that of Beranger. 
The latter is as diamond compared with charcoal. Then, like 
all those writers who write in numbers that come out weekly 
or monthly, he abuses himself and his subject ; he often must ; 
the arrangement is false and mechanical. 

The attitude of Sue is at this moment imposing, as he stands, 
pen in hand, — this his only weapon against an innumerable 
host of foes, — the champion of poverty, innocence, and human- 
ity, against superstition, selfishness, and prejudice. When his 
works are forgotten, — and for all their strong points and bril- 
liant decorations, they may ere long be forgotten, — still the 
writer's name shall be held in imperishable honor as the 
teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak, a true trib- 
une for the people of his own time. 

One of the most unexceptionable and attractive writers of 
modern France is De Vigny. His life has been passed in the 
army ; but many years of peace have given him time for lit- 
erary culture, while his acquaintance with the traditions of the 
army, from the days of its dramatic achievements under Bona- 
parte, supply the finest materials both for narrative and re- 
flection. His tales are written with infinite grace, refined 
sensibility, and a dignified view. His treatment of a subject 
shows that closeness of grasp and clearness of sight which are 
rarely attained by one who is not at home in active as well as 
thoughtful life. He has much penetration, too, and has 
touched some of the most delicate springs of human action. 
His works have been written in hours of leisure ; this has 
diminished their number, but given him many advantages 
over the thousands of professional writers that fill the coffee- 
houses of Paris by day, and its garrets by night. We wish 
he were more read here in the original ; with him would be 
found good French, and the manners, thoughts, and feelings 
of a cosmopolitan gentleman. 

To sum up this imperfect account of the merits of these Novel- 
ists : I see De Vigny, a retiring figure, the gentleman, the solitary 



168 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

thinker, but, in his way, the efficient foe of false honor and super- 
stitious prejudice; Balzac is the heartless surgeon, probing the 
wounds and describing the delirium of suffering men for the 
amusement of his students ; Sue, a bold and glittering crusader, 
with endless ballads jingling in the silence of the night before 
the battle. They are all much right and a good deal wrong ; for 
instance, all who would lay down their lives for the sake of truth, 
yet let their virtuous characters practise stratagems, falsehood, 
and violence ; in fact, do evil for the sake of good. They still 
show this taint of the old regime, and no wonder ! La belle 
France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountain air 
will not, at once, or soon, restore the natural hues to her com- 
plexion. But they are fine figures, and all ruled by the 
onward spirit of the time. Led by that spirit, I see them 
moving on the troubled waters ; they do not sink, and I trust 
they will find their way to the coasts where the new era will 
introduce new methods, in a spirit of nobler activity, wiser 
patience, and holier faith, than the world has yet seen. 

Will Balzac also see that shore, or has he only broken away 
the bars that hindered others from setting sail ? We do not 
know. When we read an expression of such lovely innocence 
as the letter of the little country maidens to their Parisian 
brother, (in Father Goriot,) we hope ; but presently we see 
him sneering behind the mask, and we fear. Let Frenchmen 
speak to this question. They know best what disadvantages a 
Frenchman suffers under, and whether it is possible Balzac 
be still alive, except in his eyes. Those, we know, are quite 
alive. 

To read these, or any foreign works fairly, the reader must 
understand the national circumstances under which they were 
written. To use them worthily, he must know how to inter- 
pret them for the use of the universe. 



THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM* 

Man is always trying to get charts and directions for the 
super-sensual element in which he finds himself involuntarily 
moving. Sometimes, indeed, for long periods, a life of con- 
tinual activity in supplying bodily wants or warding off bodily 
dangers will make him inattentive to the circumstances of this 
other life. Then, in an interval of leisure, he will start to 
find himself pervaded by the power of this more subtle and 
searching energy, and will turn his thoughts, with new force, 
to scrutinize its nature and its promises. 

At such times a corps is formed of workmen, furnished 
with various implements for the work. Some collect facts 
from which they hope to build up a theory ; others propose 
theories by whose light they hope to detect valuable facts ; a 
large number are engaged in circulating reports of these la- 
bors ; a larger in attempting to prove them invalid and absurd. 
These last are of some use by shaking the canker-worms 
from the trees ; all are of use in elucidating truth. 

Such a course of study has the civilized world been en- 
gaged in for some years back with regard to what is called 
Animal Magnetism. We say the civilized world, because, 
though a large portion of the learned and intellectual, to say 
nothing of the thoughtless and the prejudiced, view such re- 
searches as folly, yet we believe that those prescient souls, 
those minds more deeply alive, which are the life of this 

* Etherology, or the Philosophy of Mesmerism and Phrenology : Includ- 
ing a New Philosophy of Sleep and of Consciousness, with a Review of the 
Pretensions of Neurology and Phreno-Magnetisra. By J. Stanley Grimes. 
15 (169) 



170 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

and the parents of the next era, all, more or less, consciously 
or unconsciously, share the belief in such an agent as is un- 
derstood by the largest definition of animal magnetism ; that 
is, a means by which influence and thought may be communi- 
cated from one being to another, independent of the usual 
organs, and with a completeness and precision rarely attained 
through these. 

For ourselves, since we became conscious at all of our 
connection with the two forms of being called the spiritual 
and material, we have perceived the existence of such an 
agent, and should have no doubts on the subject, if we had 
never heard one human voice in correspondent testimony 
with our perceptions. The reality of this agent we know, 
have tested some of its phenomena, but of its law and its 
analysis find ourselves nearly as ignorant as in earliest child- 
hood. And we must confess that the best writers we have 
read seem to us about equally ignorant. We derive pleasure 
and profit in very unequal degrees from their statements, in 
proportion to their candor, clearness of perception, severity 
of judgment, and largeness of view. If they possess these 
elements of wisdom, their statements are valuable as affording 
materials for the true theory ; but theories proposed by them 
affect us, as yet, only as partially sustained hypotheses. Too 
many among them are stained by faults which must prevent 
their coming to any valuable results, sanguine haste, jealous 
vanity, a lack of that profound devotion which alone can win 
Truth from her cold well, careless classification, abrupt gener- 
alizations. We see, as yet, no writer great enough for the 
patient investigation, in a spirit liberal yet severely true, 
which the subject demands. We see no man of Shakspearian, 
Newtonian incapability of deceiving himself or others. 

However, no such man is needed, and we believe that it is 
pure democracy to rejoice that, in this department as in others, 
it is no longer some one great genius that concentrates within 
himself the vital energy of his time. It is many working 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM. 171 

together who do tlie work. The waters spring up in every 
direction, as little rills, each of which performs its part. "We 
see a movement corresponding with this in the region of exact 
science, and we have no doubt that in the course of fifty years 
a new spiritual circulation will be comprehended as clearly 
as the circulation of the blood is now. * 

In metaphysics, in phrenology, in animal magnetism, in 
electricity, in chemistry, the tendency is the same, even when 
conclusions seem most dissonant. The mind presses nearer 
home to the seat of consciousness the more intimate law and 
rule of life, and old limits, become fluid beneath the fire of 
thought. We are learning much, and it will be a grand music, 
that shall be played on this organ of many pipes. 

With regard to Mr. Grimes's book, in the first place, we do 
not possess sufficient knowledge of the subject to criticise it 
thoroughly ; and secondly, if we did, it could not be done in 
narrow limits. To us his classification is unsatisfactory, his 
theory inadequate, his point of view uncongenial. We disap- 
prove of the spirit in which he criticises other disciples in this 
science, who have, we believe, made some good observations, 
with many failures, though, like himself, they do not hold 
themselves sufficiently lowly as disciples. For we do not be- 
lieve there is any man, yet, who is entitled to give himself the 
air of having taken a degree on this subject. We do not 
want the tone of qualification or mincing apology. We want 
no mock modesty, but its reality, which is the almost sure 
attendant on greatness. What a lesson it would be for this 
country if a body of men could be at work together in that 
harmony which would not fail to ensue on a disinterested love 
of discovering truth, and with that patience and exactness in 
experiment without which no machine was ever invented 
worthy a patent! The most superficial, go-ahead, hit-or-miss 
American knows that no machine was ever perfected without 
this patience and exactness ; and let no one hope to achieve 
victories in the realm of mind at a cheaper rate than in that 
of matter. 



172 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

In speaking thus of Mr. Grimes's book, we can still cor- 
dially recommend it to the perusal of our readers. Its state- 
ments are full and sincere. The writer has abilities which 
only need to be used with more thoroughness and a higher 
aim to guide him to valuable attainments. 

In this connection we will relate a passage from personal 
experience, to us powerfully expressive of the nature of this 
higher agent in the intercourse of minds. 

Some years ago I went, unexpectedly, into a house where 
a blind girl, thought at that time to have attained an extra- 
ordinary degree of clairvoyance, lay in a trance of somnam- 
bulism. I was not invited there, nor known to the party, but 
accompanied a gentleman who was. 

The somnambulist was in a very happy state. On her lips 
was the satisfied smile, and her features expressed the gentle ele- 
vation incident to the state. At that time I had never seen any 
one in it, and had formed no image or opinion on the subject. 
I was agreeably impressed by the somnambulist, but on 
listening to the details of her observations on a distant place, 
I thought she had really no vision, but was merely led or im- 
pressed by the mind of the person who held her hand. 

After a while I was beckoned forward, and my hand 
given to the blind girl. The latter instantly dropped it with 
an expression of pain, and complained that she should have 
been brought in contact with a person so sick, and suffering 
at that moment under violent nervous headache. This really 
was the case, but no one present could have been aware of it. 

After a while the somnambulist seemed penitent and trou- 
bled. She asked again for my hand which she had rejected, and, 
while holding it, attempted to magnetize the sufferer. She 
seemed touched by profound pity, spoke most intelligently of 
the disorder of health and its causes, and gave advice, which, 
if followed at that time, I have every reason to believe would 
have remedied the ill. 

Not only the persons present, but the person advised also, 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM. 173 

had no adequate idea then of the extent to which health 
was affected, nor saw fully, till some time after, the justice of 
what was said by the somnambulist. There is every reason 
to believe that neither she, nor the persons who had the care 
of her, knew even the name of the person whom she so 
affectionately wished to help. 

Several years after, in visiting an asylum for the blind, 
I saw this same girl seated there. She was no longer a 
somnambulist, though, from a nervous disease, very suscepti- 
ble to magnetic influences. I went to her among a crowd of 
strangers, and shook hands with her as several others had 
done. I then asked, " Do you not not know me ? " She an- 
swered, " No." " Do you not remember ever to have met 
me?" She tried to recollect, but still said, ".No." I then 
addressed a few remarks to her about her situation there, but 
she seemed preoccupied, and, while I turned to speak with 
some one else, wrote with a pencil these words, which she gave 
me at parting : — 

" The ills that Heaven decrees 
The brave with courage bear." 

Others may explain this as they will ; to me it was a token 
that the same affinity that had acted before, gave the same 
knowledge ; for the writer was at the time ill in the same 
way as before. It also seemed to indicate that the somnam- 
bulic trance was only a form of the higher development, the 
sensibility to more subtle influences — in the terms of Mr. 
Grimes, a susceptibility to etherium. The blind girl per- 
haps never knew who I was, but saw my true state more 
clearly than any other person did, and I have kept those 
pencilled lines, written in the stiff, round character proper 
to the blind, as a talisman of " Credenciveness," as the book be- 
fore me styles it, Credulity as the world at large does, and, to 
my own mind, as one of the clews granted, during this earthly 
life, to the mysteries of future states of being, and more rapid 
and complete modes of intercourse between mind and mind. 
15 * 



DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST.* 

The publishers of this interesting and spirited journal 
have, this year, begun to issue a weekly paper in addition 
to their former arrangement. We regret not to have been 
able earlier to take some notice of their prospectus, but an 
outline of it will be new to most of our readers. 

Their journal has hitherto been intended for German read- 
ers in this country, and has been devoted to topics of Euro- 
pean interest, but by the addition of the "Weekly, it hopes to 
discuss with some fulness those of American interest also ; 
thus becoming " an organ of communication between Ger- 
mans of the old and new home, as to their wants, interests, 
and thoughts." These judicious remarks follow : — 

"The editors do not coincide with those who believe it the 
vocation of the immigrant German, by systematic separation 
from the people who offer him a new home, by voluntary 
withdrawal from the unaccustomed, and, perhaps, for him 
too vehement stream of their life, in a word, by obstinate 
adhesion to the old, to keep inviolate the stamp of his 
nationality. 

"Rather is it their faith that it should be the most earnest 
desire of the immigrant, not merely to appropriate in form, 
but to deserve the rights of a citizen here — rights which we 
confide in the healthy mind of the nation to sustain him in, 
all fanatical opposition to the contrary notwithstanding. And 
he must deserve them by becoming an American, not merely 

* A German newspaper. 

(174) 



DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST. 175 

in name, but in deed, not merely by assuming claims, but by 
appreciating duties. 

" But while we renounce this narrow and one-sided isola- 
tion, desiring to integrate ourselves, fairly and truly, with 
the great family that receives us to its hospitality, we will 
hold so much the more firmly to the higher traits of our own 
race. We hold to the noble jewel of our native tongue ; the 
memories of our nation's ancient glory ; the sympathy with 
its future, as yet only glimmering in the dusk ; our old, true, 
domestic manners ; dear inherited customs, that give to the 
tranquillities of home their sanctity — to the intercourse be- 
tween men a fresh, glad life. 

" So much for our position in general." 

They promise, as to American affairs, " to be just as far as 
in them lies, and independent, certainly." 

We think the tone of these remarks truly honorable and 
right-minded. It is such a tone that each division of our 
adopted citizens needs to hear from those of their compa- 
triots able to guide and enlighten them. We do want that 
each nation should preserve what is valuable in its parent 
stock. We want all the elements for the new people of the 
new world. We want the prudence, the honor, the practical 
skill of the English ; the fun, the affectionateness, the gener- 
osity of the Irish ; the vivacity, the grace, the quick intelli- 
gence of the French ; the thorough honesty, the capacity for 
philosophic view, and deep enthusiasm of the German Bie- 
dermann ; the shrewdness and romance of the Scotch, — but we 
want none of their prejudices. We want the healthy seed to 
develop itself into a different plant in the new climate. We 
have reason to hope a new and generous race, where the 
Italian meets the German, the Swede, the Jew. Let nothing 
be obliterated, but all be regenerated ; let each leader say in 
like manner to his band, Apply the old loyalty to a study 
of new duties. Examine yourself whether you are worthy 
of the new rights so freely bestowed upon you, and recognize 



176 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

that only intelligent action, and not mere bodily presence, can 
make you really a citizen on any soil. It is a glorious boon 
offered you to be a founder of the new dynasty in the new 
world ; but it would have been better for you to have died a 
thousand deaths beneath the factory wheels of England, or 
in the prisons of Russia, than to sell this great privilege for 
selfish or servile ends. Here each man has before him the 
choice of Esau — each may defraud a long succession of souls 
of their princely inheritance. 

Do those whose bodies were born upon this soil reject 
you, and claim for themselves the name of natives ? You 
may be natives, in another sort, for the soul may be re-born 
here. Cast for yourselves a new nativity, and invoke the 
starry influences that do not fail to shine into the life of a good 
man, whose heart is kept open daily to truth in every new 
form, whose heart is strengthened by a desire to do his duty 
valiantly to every brother of the human family. Offer upon 
the soil a libation of worthy feelings in gratitude for the bread 
it so willingly yields you, and it is true that the " healthy mind 
of the nation " cannot long fail to greet you with joy, and hail 
your endowment with civic rights. 

We must think there is a deep root, in fact, for the late 
bitter expressions of prejudice, however unworthy the mode 
of exhibiting them, against the foreign element in our popula- 
tion. We want all this new blood, but we want it purified, 
assimilated, or it will take all form of comeliness from the 
growing nation. Our country is a willing foster mother, but 
her children need wise tutors to prevent them from playing, 
willingly or unwillingly, the viper's part. 

There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Mority Hart- 
mann, called the "Three," — which would be a forcible appeal, 
if any were needed, in behalf of all who are exiled from their 
native soil. We translate it into prose, and this will not spoil 
it, as its poetry lies in the situation. 

" In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who 



DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST. 177 

have taken refuge there from storm and darkness — in Hun- 
gary, where the wind of chance drives together the children 
of many a land. 

" Their eyes glow with fires of various light ; their locks 
are unlike in their flow ; but their hearts — their wounded 
hearts — are urns filled with the tears of a common grief. 

" One cries, ' Silent companions ! Shall we have no toast 
to cheer our meeting ? I offer you one which you cannot 
fail to pledge — Freedom and greatness to the Father- 
land ! 

" ' To the fatherland ! But I am one that knows not 
where is his ; I am a Gypsy ; my fatherland lies in the 
realm of tradition — in the mournful tone of the violin swelled 
by grief and storm. 

" ' I pass musing over heath and moor, and think of my 
painful losses. Yet long since was I weaned from desire of 
a home, and think of Egypt but as the cymbal sounds.' 

" The second says, ' This toast of fatherland I will not 
drink ; mine own shame should I pledge. For the seed of 
Jacob flies like the dried leaf, and takes no root in the dust 
of slavery.' 

" The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. 
He asks himself in silence, ' Shall 7" drink to the fatherland ? 
Lives Poland yet, or is all life departed, and am I, like these, 
a motherless son ? ' " 

To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not 
live there, without starving body and soul, may our land be a 
fatherland ; and may they seek and learn to act as children 
in a father's house ! 

A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it 
seems, been reproved by some friends on the safe side of 
the water for the violence of his attack on crowned heads, 
and other dilettanti, defends himself with great spirit, and 
argues his case well from his own point of view. AVe do not 



178 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

agree with him as to the use of methods, but cannot mil to 
sympathize in his feeling. 

Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are 
well associated with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet 
was truly the Great. In a foreign city, seeing the gallows, 
he asked the use of that three-cornered thing. Being told, to 
hang people on, he requested that one might be hung for him, 
directly. Being told this, unfortunately, could not be done, 
as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired that one 
of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did 
this with no further thought than the Empress Catharine 
bestowed, on having a ship of the line blown up, as a model 
for the painter who was to adorn her palace with pictures of 
naval battles. Disregard for human life and human happi- 
ness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern hem- 
isphere ; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not 
on a scale so imperial. 



OLIVER CROMWELL* 

A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance 
of this book. We cannot wonder that it should have been 
long, when Mr. Carlyle shows us what a world of ill-arranged 
and almost worthless materials he has had to wade through 
before achieving any possibility of order and harmony for his 
narrative. 

The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and 
speeches of Cromwell tell the story when possible, only him- 
self doing what is needful to throw light where it is most 
wanted and fill up gaps, is an excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, 
indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and with each slide 
of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is necessary 
to enable us to understand it, but how we must look at it, 
under peril of being ranked as " imbeciles," " canting scep- 
tics," " disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. 
And aware of his power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous 
picture to any one who refuses to obey, we might perhaps feel 
ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under such constraint and 
fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of having under 
our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on 
which he formed his. 

But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own 
audience of despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils ; 
and we need not fear to be handed down to posterity as "a 
little gentleman in a gray coat" "shrieking" unutterable " im- 
becilities," or with the like damnatory affixes, when we profess 

* Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, by Thomas Carlyle. 

(179) 



180 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

that, having read the book, and read the letters and speeches 
thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's explanation of 
the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old " Phil- 
istine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the 
character of Cromwell. 

We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh 
synonymous with virtue, and that he has shown himself a 
firm believer in Providence by receiving the men of destiny 
as always entitled to reverence. Sometimes a great success 
has followed the portraits painted by him in the light of such 
faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural 
autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the 
monk in " Past and Present," where the geniuses of artist 
and subject coincide, the result is no less delightful for us. 

But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish 
who had always looked up to one of its squires as a secure 
and blameless idol, and one day in church, when the minister 
asked " all who felt in concern for their souls to rise," looked 
to the idol and seeing him retain his seat, (asleep perchance !) 
sat still also. One of his friends asking him afterwards how 
he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, " he 
thought it safest to stay with the squire." 

Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or 
war, (usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and 
genius, and so far, as he describes them, "genuine men." But 
in doubtful cases, where the doubt is between them and prin- 
ciples, he will insist that the men must be in the right. On 
such occasions he favors us with such doctrine as the follow- 
ing, which we confess we had the weakness to read with 
"sibylline execration" and extreme disgust. 

Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland : — 

" Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much 
loud criticism, sibylline execration, into which it is not our 
plan to enter at present. We shall give these fifteen letters 
of his in a mass, and without any commentary whatever. To 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 181 

those who think that a land overrun with sanguinary quacks 
can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters 
must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this ; but is it sur- 
gery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely ? This is a 
question which should be asked; and answered. Oliver 
Cromwell did believe in God's judgments ; and did not be- 
lieve in the rose-water plan of surgery, — which, in fact, is 
this editor's case too ! Every idle lie and piece of empty 
bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to shudder at 
it ; has to think, ' Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also art 
shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue 
as a cleft crown to some poor man some day ; thou also wilt 
have to take shelter in bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow ! ' 
But in Oliver's time, as I say, there was still belief in the 
judgments of God ; in Oliver's time, there was yet no dis- 
tracted jargon of ' abolishing capital punishments,' of Jean- 
Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world 
still so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing pun- 
ishments, but for making laws just. God the Maker's laws, 
they considered, had not yet got the punishment abolished 
from them ! Men had a notion that the difference between 
good and evil was still considerable — equal to the difference 
between heaven and hell. It was a true notion, which all 
men yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be 
true. Only in late decadent generations, fast hastening to- 
ward radical change or final perdition, can such indiscriminate 
mashing up of good and evil into one universal patent treacle, 
and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau sentimentalism, 
universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink and 
one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very 
poisonous, as sweet as it is, and very nauseous ; of which 
Oliver, happier than we, had not yet heard the slightest inti- 
mation even in dreams. 

* * * 

" In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete ; the phrases 
16 



182 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

of Oliver, to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices 
of God, have become to us most mournful when spouted as 
frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The reader has, all along, to 
make steady allowance for that. And on the whole, clear 
recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous 
canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, 
when there is no peace, — such a phenomena as Oliver, in 
Ireland or elsewhere, is not the most recognizable in all its 
meanings. But it waits there for recognition, and can wait 
an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, as I count, 
has a good many centuries in it yet ; and ages of very varied 
complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this 
passage and others, shall make of it what he can. 

" But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military de- 
spatches of the most unexampled nature ! Most rough, un- 
kempt ; shaggy as the Numidian lion. A style rugged as 
crags ; coarse, drossy : yet with a meaning in it, an energy, 
a depth ; pouring on like a fire torrent ; perennial fire of it 
visible athwart all drosses and defacements ; not uninteresting 
to see ! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a 
God's truth in the heart of him, though an unexpected one ; 
the first such man they have seen for a great while indeed. 
He carries acts of Parliament, laws of earth and heaven, in 
one hand ; drawn sword in the other. He addresses the be- 
wildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sangui- 
nary blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere : ' San- 
guinary, blustering individuals, whose word is grown worth- 
less as the barking of dogs ; whose very thought is false, rep- 
resenting no fact, but the contrary of fact — behold, I am 
come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are acts 
in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems 
the nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law- 
book, to which it is and shall be our perpetual effort to make 
them correspond nearer and nearer. Obey them, help us to 
perfect them, be peaceable and true under them, it shall be 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 183 

well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let you con- 
tinue living ! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, 
not as a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall 
you continue in this earth. Choose ! ' They chose to disbe- 
lieve him ; could not understand that he, more than the others, 
meant any truth or justice to them. They rejected his sum- 
mons and terms at Tredah ; he stormed the place ; and, ac- 
cording to his promise, put every man of the garrison to death. 
His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclama- 
tion ; and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when 
they do it. To Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tre- 
dah ; and, failing these, the like storm. Here is a man whose 
word represents a thing ! Not bluster this, and false jargon 
scattering itself to the winds ; what this man speaks out of 
him comes to pass as a fact ; speech with this man is accu- 
rately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor 
Ireland ever saw ; the first friend's face, little as it recognizes 
him — poor Ireland ! " 

Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done 
which he had resolved to get done ; and this is the whole truth 
about your admiration, Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drog- 
heda quoth Cromwell, — 

" I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defend- 
ants. * # Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade 
them to spare any that were in arms in the town ; and I think 
that night they put to the sword about two thousand men, 
divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge 
into the other part of the town ; and where about one hun- 
dred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. 
These, being summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Where- 
upon I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's Church to be fired ; 
when one of them was heard to say, in the midst of the flames, 
God confound me ! I burn, I burn ! ' 

" I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God 



184 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

upon these barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands 
in so much innocent blood ; and that it will tend to prevent 
the effusion of blood for the future. Which are the satisfac- 
tory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work 
remorse and regret. * * This hath been an exceeding 
great mercy." 

Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. 
Carlyle says such measures " cut to the heart of the war," 
and brought peace. Was there then no crying of Peace, 
Peace, when there was no peace ? Ask the Irish peasantry 
why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of " Crom- 
well's Curse ! " 

For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in 
particulars that must occur, we believe the summing up of a 
man's character in the verdict of his time, is likely to be cor- 
rect. We believe that Cromwell was "a curse," as much as 
a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe him ruthless, 
ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want 
of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too 
bad to rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up 
the prince of canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen 
nobleness." Dimly, indeed, despite the rhetoric and satire 
of Mr. Carlyle ! 

In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his 
predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen 
circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine 
moments, fine lights upon the character that he would seize 
upon. But here the facts look just as they always have. He 
indeed ascertains that the Cromwell family were not mere 
brewers or plebeians, but "substantial gentry," and that there 
is not the least ground for the common notion that Crom- 
well lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the excep- 
tion of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. 
We see a man of strong and wise mind, educated by the pres- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 185 

sure of great occasions to station of command ; we see him 
wearing the religious garb which was the custom of the times, 
and even preaching to himself as well as to others — for well 
can we imagine that his courage and his pride would have 
fallen without keeping up the illusion ; but we never see 
Heaven answering his invocations in any way that can inter- 
fere with the rise of his fortunes or the accomplishment of his 
plans. To ourselves, the tone of these religious holdings-forth 
is sufficiently expressive ; they all ring hollow ; we have 
never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to us than 
the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a 
noble contrast to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, 
we cannot recover from our surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking 
these letters ; his predetermination must have been strong 
indeed. Again, we see Cromwell ruling with the strong arm, 
and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an excess which no 
Stuart could surpass. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the 
king he had punished with death is foolish ; Charles is faith- 
less, and Cromwell crafty ; we see no other difference. Crom- 
well does not, in power, abide by the principles that led him 
to it ; and we can't help — so rose-water imbecile are we ! — 
admiring those who do : one Lafayette, for instance — poor 
chevalier so despised by Mr. Carlyle — for abiding by his 
principles, though impracticable, more than Louis Philippe, 
who laid them aside, so far as necessary, " to secure peace to 
the kingdom : " and to us it looks black for one who kills 
kings to grow to be more kingly than a king. 

The death of Charles I. was a boon to the world, for it 
marked the dawn of a new era, when kings, in common Avith 
other men, are to be held accountable by God and mankind 
for what they do. Many who took part in this act which did 
require a courage and faith almost unparalleled, were, no 
doubt, moved by the noblest sense of duty. We doubt not 
this had its share in the bosom counsels of Cromwell. But 
16* 



186 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

we cannot sympathize with the apparent satisfaction of Mr. 
Carlyle in seeing him engaged, two days after the execu- 
tion, in marriage treaty for his son. This seems more ruth- 
lessness than calmness. One who devoted so many days to 
public fasting and prayer, on less occasions, might well make 
solemn pause on this. Mr. Carlyle thinks much of some 
pleasant domestic letters from Cromwell. What brigand, 
what pirate, fails to have some such soft and light feel- 
ings ? 

In short, we have no time to say all we think ; but we 
stick to the received notions of Old Noll, with his great, red 
nose, hard heart, long head, and crafty ambiguities. Nobody 
ever doubted his great abilities and force of will ; neither doubt 
we that he was made an "instrument" just as he professeth. 
But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlyle's glasses, we 
shall not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other 
proof to offer than is shown yet. And we resent the violence 
he offers both to our prejudices and our perceptions. If he 
has become interested in Oliver, or any other pet hyena, by 
studying his habits, is that any reason we should admit him 
to our Pantheon ? No ! our imbecility shall keep fast the 
door against any thing short of proofs that in the hyena a 
god is incarnated. Mr. Carlyle declares that he sees it, but 
we really cannot. The hyena is surely not out of the king- 
dom of God, but as to being the finest emblem of what is 
divine — no, no ! 

In short, we can sympathize with the words of John 
Maidstone : — 

"He [Cromwell] was a strong man in the dark perils of 
war ; in the high places of the field, hope shone in him like a 
pillar of fire, when it had gone out in the others " — a poetic 
and sufficient account of the secret of his power. 

But Mr. Carlyle goes on to gild the refined gold thus : — 

" A genuine king among men, Mr. Maidstone ! The divinest 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 187 

sight this world sees, when it is privileged to see such, and not 
be sickened with the unholy apery of such." 

We know you do with all your soul love kings and heroes, 
Mr. Carlyle, but we are not sure you would always know the 
Sauls from the Davids. We fear, if you had the disposal of 
the holy oil, you would be tempted to pour it on the head of 
him who is taller by the head than all his brethren, without 
sufficient care as to purity of inward testimony. 

Such is the impression left on us by the book thus far, as 
to the view of its hero ; but as to what difficulties attended the 
writing the history of Cromwell, the reader will like to see 
what Mr. Carlyle himself says : — 

" These authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself — 
I have gathered them from far and near ; fished them up 
from the foul Lethean quagmires where they lay buried ; I 
have washed, or endeavored to wash, them clean from for- 
eign stupidities, (such a job of buck-washing as I do not long 
to repeat ;) and the world shall now see them in their own 
shape." 

For the rest, this book is of course entertaining, witty, 
dramatic, picturesque ; all traits that are piquant, many that 
have profound interest, are brought out better than new. The 
" letters and speeches " are put into readable state, and this 
alone is a great benefit. They are a relief after Mr. Carlyle's 
high-seasoned writing; and this again is a relief after their 
long-winded dimnesses. Most of the heroic anecdotes of the 
time had been used up before, but they lose nothing in the 
hands of Carlyle ; and pictures of the scenes, such as of Nase- 
by fight, for instance, it was left to him to give. We have 
passed over the hackneyed ground attended by a torch-bearer, 
who has given a new animation to the procession of events, 
and cast a ruddy glow on many a striking physiognomy. That 
any truth of high value has been brought to light, we do not 
perceive — certainly nothing has been added to our own Sense 
of the greatness of the times, nor any new view presented 



188 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

that we can adopt, as to the position and character of the 
agents. 

We close with the only one of Cromwell's letters that we 
really like. Here his religious words and hia temper seem 
quite sincere. 

" To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton : These. 

July, 1644. 

" Dear Sir : It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies ; 
and to praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, so 
that we may sorrow together. 

" Truly England and the church of God hath had a great 
favor from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such 
as the like never was since this war began. It had all the 
evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's bless- 
ing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but 
we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, 
being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all 
the prince's horse. God make them as stubble to our swords. 
We charged their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed 
all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now ; but I 
believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four thousand 
left. Give glory, all the glory, to God. 

" Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon- 
shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut 
off, whereof he died. 

"Sir, you know my own trials this way;* but the Lord 
supported me with this, that the Lord took him into the hap- 
piness we all pant for and live for. There is your precious 
child, full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. 
He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God 
give you his comfort. Before his death he was so full of 

* I conclude the poor boy Oliver has already fallen in these wars ; none 
of us knows where, though his father well knew. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 189 

comfort, that to Frank Russel and myself he could not ex- 
press it, ' it was so great above his pain.' This he said to us. 
Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing 
lay upon his spirit. I asked him what that was. He told 
me it was, that God had not suffered him to be any more the 
executioner of his enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed 
with the bullet, and, as I am informed, three horses more, I 
am told he bid them open to the right and left, that he might 
see the rogues run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in 
the army, of all that knew him. But few knew him ; for he 
was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to 
bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in heaven ; wherein 
you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your 
sorrow ; seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, 
but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth. You may do 
all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you 
shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the 
church of God make you to forget your private sorrow. The 
Lord be your strength ; so prays 

" Your truly faithful and loving brother, 

"Oliver Cromwell." 

And add this noble passage, in which Carlyle speaks of the 
morbid affection of Cromwell's mind : — 

" In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, physician in 
Huntingdon, had to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies. 
He told Sir Philip "Warwick, unluckily specifying no date, or 
none that has survived, * he had often been sent for at mid- 
night ; ' Mr. Cromwell for many years was very ' splenetic,' 
(spleen-struck,) often thought he was just about to die. and 
also ' had fancies about the Town CrOss.' * Brief intimation, 
of which the reflective reader may make a great deal. Sam- 
uel Johnson too had hypochondrias ; all great souls are apt to 



* Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs, (London, 1701,) \ 



249. 



190 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

have ; and to be in thick darkness generally, till the eternal 
ways and the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves, and 
the vague abyss of life knit itself up into firmaments for them. 
The temptations in the wilderness, choices of Hercules, and the 
like, in succinct or loose form, are appointed for every man 
that will assert a soul in himself and be a man. Let Oliver 
take comfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies. The 
quantity of sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quan- 
tity of sympathy he has, the quantity of faculty and victory 
he shall yet have ? ' Our sorrow is the inverted image of our 
nobleness.' The depth of our despair measures what capa- 
bility, and height of claim, we have to hope. Black smoke as 
of Tophet filling all your universe, it can yet by true heart- 
energy become flaine, and brilliancy of heaven. Courage!" 

Were the flame but a pure as well as a bright flame ! Some- 
times we know the black phantoms change to white angel 
forms ; the vulture is metamorphosed into a dove. Was it so 
in this instance ? Unlike Mr. Carlyle, we are willing to let 
each reader judge for himself; but perhaps we should not be 
so generous if we had studied ourselves sick in wading through . 
all that mass of papers, and had nothing to defend us against 
the bitterness of biliousness, except a growing enthusiasm 
about our hero. 



EMERSON'S ESSAYS.* 

At the distance of three years this volume follows the first 
series of Essays, which have already made to themselves a 
circle of readers, attentive, thoughtful, more and more intelli- 
gent ; and this circle is a large one if we consider the circum- 
stances of this country, and of England also, at this time. 

In England it would seem there are a larger number of 
persons waiting for an invitation to calm thought and sincere 
intercourse than among ourselves. Copies of Mr. Emerson's 
first published little volume called " Nature," have there been 
sold by thousands in a short time, while one edition has needed 
seven years to get circulated here. Several of his orations 
and essays from the " Dial " have also been republished 
there, and met with a reverent and earnest response. 

We suppose that while in England the want of such a voice 
is as great as here, a larger number are at leisure to recog- 
nize that want ; a far larger number have set foot in the spec- 
ulative region, and have ears refined to appreciate these 
melodious accents. 

Our people, heated by a partisan spirit, necessarily occu- 
pied in these first stages by bringing out the material resources 
of the land, not generally prepared by early training for 
the enjoyment of books that require attention and reflection, 
are still more injured by a large majority of writers and 
speakers, who lend all their efforts to flatter corrupt tastes 
and mental indolence, instead of feeling it their prerogative 
and their duty to admonish the community of the danger and 

* Essays, Second Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

(191) 



192 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

arouse it to nobler energy. The plan of the popular writer or 
lecturer is not to say the best he knows in as few and 
well-chosen words as he can, making it his first aim to do 
justice to the subject. Rather he seeks to beat out a thought 
as thin as possible, and to consider what the audience will be 
most willing to receive. 

The result of such a course is inevitable. Literature and 
art must become daily more degraded; philosophy cannot 
exist. A man who feels within his mind some spark of 
genius, or a capacity for the exercises of talent, should con- 
sider himself as endowed with a sacred commission. He is 
the natural priest, the shepherd of the people. He must 
raise his mind as high as he can towards the heaven of truth, 
and try to draw up with him those less gifted by nature witli 
ethereal lightness. If he does not so, but rather employs his 
powers to flatter them in their poverty, and to hinder aspira- 
tion by useless words, and a mere seeming of activity, his sin 
is great ; he is false to God, and false to man. 

Much of this sin indeed is done ignorantly. The idea that 
literature calls men to the genuine hierarchy is almost for- 
gotten. One, who finds himself able, uses his pen, as he 
might a trowel, solely to procure himself bread, without hav- 
ing reflected on the position in which he thereby places 
himself. 

Apart from the troop of mercenaries, there is one, still 
larger, of those who use their powers merely for local and 
temporary ends, aiming at no excellence other than may con- 
duce to these. Among these rank persons of honor and the 
best intentions ; but they neglect the lasting for the transient, 
as a man neglects to furnish his mind that lie may provide the 
better for the house in which his body is to dwell for a few 
years. 

At a period when these sins and errors are prevalent, and 
threaten to become more so, how can we sufficiently prize and 
honor a mind which is quite pure from such ? When, as in the 



emerson's essays. 193 

present case, we find a man whose only aim is the discernment 
and interpretation of the spiritual laws by which we live, and 
move, and have our being, all whose objects are permanent, 
and whose every word stands for a fact. 

If only as a representative of the claims of individual cul- 
ture in a nation which is prone to lay such stress on artificial 
organization and external results, Mr. Emerson would be in- 
valuable here. History will inscribe his name as a father of 
his country, for he is one who pleads her cause against herself. 

If New England may be regarded as a chief mental focus 
to the New World, — and many symptoms seem to give her this 
place, — as to other centres belong the characteristics of heart 
and lungs to the body politic ; if we may believe, as we 
do believe, that what is to be acted out, in the country at 
large, is, most frequently, first indicated there, as all the phe- 
nomena of the nervous system are in the fantasies of the brain, 
we may hail as an auspicious omen the influence Mr. Emer- 
son has there obtained, which is deep-rooted, increasing, and, 
over the younger portion of the community, far greater than 
that of any other person. 

His books are received there with a more ready intelli- 
gence than elsewhere, partly because his range of personal 
experience and illustration applies to that region ; partly be- 
cause he has prepared the way for his books to be read by 
his great powers as a speaker. 

The audience that waited for years upon the lectures, a 
part of which is incorporated into these volumes of Essays, 
was never large, but it was select, and it was constant. Among 
the hearers were some, who, though, attracted by the beauty 
of character and manner, they were willing to hear the speaker 
through, yet always went away discontented. They were accus- 
tomed to an artificial method, whose scaffolding could easily 
be retraced, and desired an obvious sequence of logical infer- 
ences. They insisted there was nothing in what they had 
heard, because they could not give a clear account of its 
17 



194 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

course and purport. They did not see that Pindar's odes 
might be very well arranged for their own purpose, and yet 
not bear translating into the methods of Mr. Locke. 

Others were content to be benefited by a good influence, 
without a strict analysis of its means. " My wife says it is 
about the elevation of human nature, and so it seems to me, " 
was a fit reply to some of the critics. Many were satisfied 
to find themselves excited to congenial thought and nobler life, 
without an exact catalogue of the thoughts of the speaker. 

Those who believed no truth could exist, unless encased by 
the burrs of opinion, went away utterly baffled. Sometimes 
they thought he was on their side ; then presently would come 
something on the other. He really seemed to believe there 
were two sides to every subject, and even to intimate higher 
ground, from which each might be seen to have an infinite 
number of sides or bearings, an impertinence not to be en- 
dured ! The partisan heard but once, and returned no more. 

But some there were, — simple souls, — whose life had been, 
perhaps, without clear light, yet still a-search after truth for 
its own sake, who were able to receive what followed on the 
suggestion of a subject in a natural manner, as a stream of 
thought. These recognized, beneath the veil of words, the 
still small voice of conscience, the vestal fires of lone religious 
hours, and the mild teachings of the summer woods. 

The charm of the elocution, too, was great. His general 
manner was that of the reader, occasionally rising into direct 
address or invocation in passages where tenderness or majesty 
demanded more energy. At such times both eye and voice 
called on a remote future to give a worthy reply, — a future 
which shall manifest more largely the universal soul as it was 
then manifest to this soul. The tone of the voice was a grave 
body tone, full and sweet rather than sonorous, yet flexible, 
and haunted by many modulations, as even instruments of 
wood and brass seem to become after they have been long 
played on with skill and taste ; how much more so the human 



emerson's essays. 195 

voice ! In the more expressive passages it uttered notes of 
silvery clearness, winning, yet still more commanding. The 
words uttered in those tones floated a while above us, then 
took root in the memory like winged seed. 

In the union of an even rustic plainness with lyric inspira- 
tions, religious dignity with philosophic calmness, keen sagaci- 
ty in details with boldness of view, we saw what brought to 
mind the early poets and legislators of Greece — men who 
taught their fellows to plough and avoid moral evil, sing hymns 
to the gods, and watch the metamorphoses of nature. Here 
in civic Boston was such a man — one who could see man in 
his original grandeur and his original childishness, rooted in 
simple nature, raising to the heavens the brow and eyes of a 
poet. 

And these lectures seemed not so much lectures as grave 
didactic poems, theogonies, perhaps, adorned by odes when 
some power was in question whom the poet had best learned 
to serve, and with eclogues wisely portraying in familiar 
tongue the duties of man to man and " harmless animals." 

Such was the attitude in which the speaker appeared to 
that portion of the audience who have remained permanently at- 
tached to him. They value his words as the signets of reality ; 
receive his influence as a help and incentive to a nobler disci- 
pline than the age, in its general aspect, appears to require ; 
and do not fear to anticipate the verdict of posterity in claim- 
ing for him the honors of greatness, and, in some respects, of 
a master. 

In New England Mr. Emerson thus formed for himself a 
class of readers who rejoice to study in his books what they 
already know by heart. For, though the thought has become 
familiar, its beautiful garh is always fresh and bright in hue. 

A similar circle of " like-minded * persons the books must and 
do form for themselves, though with a movement less directly 
powerful, as more distant from its source. 

The Essays have also been obnoxious to many charges; 



196 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

to that of obscurity, or want of perfect articulation ; of 
" euphuism," as an excess of fancy in proportion to imagina- 
tion, and an inclination, at times, to subtlety at the expense of 
strength, have been styled. The human heart complains of 
inadequacy, either in the nature or experience of the writer, 
to represent its full vocation and its deeper needs. Some- 
times it speaks of this want as " under development," or a 
want of expansion which may yet be remedied ; sometimes 
doubts whether " in this mansion there be either hall or portal 
to receive the loftier of the passions." Sometimes the soul is 
deified at the expense of nature, then again nature at that of 
man ; and we are not quite sure that we can make a true har- 
mony by balance of the statements. This writer has never 
written one good work, if such a work be one where the 
whole commands more attention than the parts, or if such a 
one be produced only where, after an accumulation of mate- 
rials, fire enough be applied to fuse the whole into one new 
substance. This second series is superior in this respect to 
the former; yet in no one essay is the main stress so obvious 
as to produce on the mind the harmonious effect of a noble 
river or a tree in full leaf. Single passages and sentences en- 
gage our attention too much in proportion. These Essays, it 
has been justly said, tire like a string of mosaics or a house 
built oi medals. We miss what we expect in the work of the 
great poet, or the great philosopher — the liberal air of all the 
zones; the glow, uniform yet various in tint, which is given 
to a body by free circulation of the heart's blood from the 
hour of birth. Here is, undoubtedly, the man of ideas ; but 
we want the ideal man also — want the heart and genius of 
human life to interpret it; and here our satisfaction is not so 
perfect. We doubt this friend raised himself too early to the 
perpendicular, and did not lie along the ground lung enough to 
hear the secret whispers of our parent life. We could wish 
he might be thrown by conflicts on the lap of mother earth, 
to see if he would not rise again with added powers. 



emerson's essays. 197 

All this we may say, but it cannot excuse us from benefit- 
ing by the great gifts that have been given, and assigning 
them their due place. 

Some painters paint on a red ground. And this color may 
be supposed to represent the groundwork most immediately 
congenial to most men, as it is the color of blood, and repre- 
sents human vitality. The figures traced upon it are instinct 
with life in its fulness and depth. 

But other painters paint on a gold ground. And a very 
different, but no less natural, because also a celestial beauty, 
is given to their works who choose for their foundation the 
color of the sunbeam, which Nature has preferred for her 
most precious product, and that which will best bear the test 
of purification — gold. 

If another simile may be allowed, another no less apt is at 
hand. Wine is the most brilliant and intense expression of 
the powers of earth. It is her potable fire, her answer to 
the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires, but then it is liable to 
fever and intoxicate, too, the careless partaker. 

Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And 
this essence of the honey of the mountain bee was not thought 
unworthy to revive the souls of the valiant who had left their 
bodies on the fields of strife below. 

Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the 
golden mead, without their defects or dangers. 

Two high claims on the attention of his contemporaries our 
writer can vindicate. One from his sincerity. You have 
his thought just as it found place in the life of his own soul. 
Thus, however near or relatively distant its approximation to 
absolute truth, its action on you cannot fail to be healthful. 
It is a part of the free air. 

Emerson belongs to that band of whom there may be found a 

few in every age, and who now in known human history may 

be counted by hundreds, who worship the one God only, the 

God of Truth. They worship, not saints, nor creeds, nor 

17* 



198 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

churches, nor reliques, nor idols in any form. The mind is 
kept open to truth, and life only valued as a tendency towards 
it. This must be illustrated by acts and words of love, pu- 
rity and intelligence. Such are the salt of the earth ; let 
the minutest crystal of that salt be willingly by us held in 
solution. 

The other claim is derived from that part of his life, which, 
if sometimes obstructed or chilled by the critical intellect, is 
yet the prevalent and the main source of his power. It is 
that by which he imprisons his hearer only to free him again 
as a "liberating God," (to use his own words.) But, indeed, 
let us use them altogether, for none other, ancient or modern, 
can more worthily express how, making present to us the 
courses and destinies of nature, he invests himself with her 
serenity and animates us with her joy. 

" Poetry was all written before time was ; and whenever we 
are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region 
where the air is music, we hear those primal warbling.-, and 
attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a 
word or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and 
thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write 
down these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, 
though imperfect, become the songs of the nations." 

Thus have we, in a brief and unworthy manner, indicated 
some views of these books. The only true criticism of these 
or any good books may be gained by making them the com- 
panions of our lives. Does every accession of knowledge or 
a juster sense of beauty make us prize them more? Then 
they are good, indeed, and more immortal than mortal. Let 
that test be applied to these Essays which will lead to great 
and complete poems — somewhere. 



CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.* 

We have had this book before us for several weeks, but the 
task of reading it has been so repulsive that we have been 
obliged to get through it by short stages, with long intervals 
of rest and refreshment between, and have only just reached 
the end. We believe, however, we are now possessed of its 
substance, so far as it is possible to admit into any mind 
matter wholly uncongenial with its structure, its faith, and 
its hope. 

Meanwhile others have shown themselves more energetic 
in the task, and notices have appeared that express, in part, 
our own views. Among others an able critic has thus summed 
up his impressions : — 

" Of the whole we will say briefly, that its premises are 
monstrous, its reasoning sophistical, its conclusions absurd, and 
its spirit diabolic." 

We know not that we can find a better scheme of arrange- 
ment for what we have to say than by dividing it into sections 
under these four heads : — 

1st. The premises are monstrous. Here we must add the 
qualification, they are monstrous to us. The God of these 
writers is not the God we recognize ; the views they have of 
human nature are antipodal to ours. We believe in a Crea- 
tive Spirit, the essense of whose being is Love. He lias 
created men in the spirit of love, intending to develop them to 



* A Defence of Capital Punishment, and an Essay on the Ground and 
Reason of Punishment, with Special Reference to the Penalty of Death. 
New York, 184G. 

(199J 



200 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

perfect harmony with himself. He has permitted the tempo- 
rary existence of evil as a condition necessary to bring out in 
them free agency and individuality of character. Punishment 
is the necessary result of a bad choice in them ; it is not 
meant by him as vengeance, but as an admonition to choose 
better. Man is not born totally evil ; he is born capable both 
of good and evil, and the Holy Spirit in working on him only 
quickens the soul already there to know its Father. To one 
who takes such views the address of Jesus becomes intelligi- 
ble — "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is 
merciful." " For with the same measure that ye mete withal, 
it shall be measured to you again." 

Those who take these views of the relation between God 
and man must naturally tend to have punishment consist as 
much as possible in the inward spiritual results of faults, 
rather than a violent outward enforcement of penalty. They 
must, so far as possible, seek to revere God by showing them- 
selves brotherly to man ; and if they wish to obey Christ, 
will not forget that he came especially to call sinners to re- 
pentance. 

The views of these writers are the opposite of all this. We 
need not state them ; they are sufficiently indicated in each 
page of their own. Their conclusions are the natural result 
of such premises. We could say nothing about either, except 
to express dissent from beginning to end. Yet would it be 
sweet and noble, and worthy of this late period of human 
progress, if their position had been stated in a spirit of reli- 
gious, of manly courtesy ; if they had had the soul to say, 
" We differ from you, but we know that so wide and full a 
stream of thought and emotion as you are moved by could 
not, under the providential rule in which we believe, have 
arisen in vain. The object of every such manifestation of life 
must be to bring out truth ; come, let us seek it together. 
Let us show you our view, compare it with yours, and let us 
see which is the better. If, as we think, the truth lie with us, 



CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 201 

what joy will it be for us to cast the clear light on the object 
of your aspirations ! " 

Of this degree of liberality we have known some, even, who 
served the same creed as these writers to be capable. There 
is, indeed, a higher spirit, which, believing all forms of opinion 
which we hold in the present stage of our growth can be but 
approximations to truth, and that God has permitted to the 
multitude of men a multitude of ways by which they may 
approach one common goal, looks with reverence on all modes 
of faith sincerely held and acted upon, and while it rejoices in 
those souls which have reached the higher stages of spiritual 
growth, has no despair as to those which still grope in a narrow 
path and by a glimmering light. Such liberality is, of course, 
out of the question with such writers as the present. Their 
faith binds them to believe that they have absolute truth, and 
that all who do not believe as they do are wretched heretics. 
Those whose creed is of narrower scope are to them hateful 
bigots ; but also those with whom it is of wider are latitudina- 
rians or infidels. The spot of earth on which they stand is 
the only one safe from the conflagration, and only through 
spectacles and spyglasses such as are used by them can the 
sun and stars be seen. Yet, as we said before, some such, 
though incapacitated for an intellectual, are not so for a spir- 
itual tolerance. With them the heart, more Christ-like than 
the creed, urges to a spirit of love and reverence even towards 
convictions opposed to their own The sincere man is always 
respectable in their eyes, and they cannot help feeling that, 
wherever there is a desire for truth, there is the spirit of God, 
and his true priests will approach with gentleness, and do 
their ministry with holy care. Unhappily, it is very different 
with the persons before us. 

We let go the first two counts of the indictment. Their 
premises are, as we have said, such as we totally dissent from, 
and their conclusions such as naturally flow Groin those prem- 
ises. Yet they are those of a large body of men, and there 



202 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

must, no doubt, be temporary good in this state of things, or 
it would not be permitted. When these writers say, that to 
them moral and penal are coincident terms, they display a 
state of mind which prefers basing virtue on the fear of pun- 
ishment, rather than the love of right. If this be sincerely 
their state, if the idea of morality is with them entirely de- 
pendent on the retributions upon vice, rather than the loveli- 
ness and joys of goodness, it is impossible for those who are 
in a different state of mind to say what they do need. It may 
seem to us, indeed, that, if the strait jacket was taken off, they 
might recover the natural energy of their frames, and do far 
better without it ; or that, if no longer hurried along the road 
by the impending lash behind, they might uplift their eyes, 
and find sufficient cause for speed in the glory visible before, 
though at a distance ; however, it is not for us to say what 
their wants are. Let them choose their own principles of 
action, and if they lead to purity of life, and benevolence, 
and humanity of heart, we will not say a word against 
them. 

But in the instance before us, they do not produce these 
good fruits, but the contrary ; and therefore we have some- 
thing to say on the other part of the criticism, to wit : that 
" the reasoning is sophistical, and the spirit diabolic ; " for, 
indeed, in the sense of pride by which the angels fell, arro- 
gance of judgment, malice, and all uncharitableness, we have 
never looked on printed pages more deeply sinful. We love 
an honest lover ; but next best, we, with Dr. Johnson, know 
how to respect an honest hater. But even he would scared 
endure so bitter and ardent haters as these, and with so many 
and inconsistent objects of hatred — who hate Catholics and 
thorough Protestants, hate materialists, and hate spiritualists. 
Their list is really too large for human sympathy. 

We wish, however, to make all due allowance for inca- 
pacity in these writers to do better; and their disqualifications 
for their task, apart from a form of belief which inclines them 



CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 203 

rather to cling to the past, than to seek progress for the future, 
seem to be many. 

The "reasoning is sophistical," and it would need the pa- 
tience of a Socrates to unravel the weary web, and convince 
these sophists, against their will, that they are exactly in the 
opposite region to what they suppose. For the task we 
have not space, skill, or patience ; but we can give some 
hints by which readers may be led to examine whether it is 
so or not. 

These writers profess to occupy the position of defence ; 
surely never was one sustained so in the spirit of offence. 

1st. They appeal either to the natural or regenerate man, 
as suits their purpose. Sometimes all traditions and their 
literal interpretations are right ; sometimes it is impossible 
to interpret them aright, unless according to some peculiar 
doctrine, and the natural inference of the common mind would 
be an error. 

2d. They strain, but vainly, to show the New Testament 
no improvement on the Old, and themselves in harmonious 
relations to both. On this subject we would confidently leave 
the arbitration to a mind — could such a one be found — 
sufficiently disciplined to examine the subject, and new both 
to the New Testament and this volume, as that of Rammohun 
Roy might have been, whether its views are not of the same 
strain that Jesus sought to correct and enlighten among the 
Jews, and whether the writers do not treat the teachings of the 
new dispensation most unfairly, in their desire to wrest them 
into the service of the old. 

3d. Wherever there is a weak place in the argument, it is 
filled up by abuse of ''•'' opposite party. The words " absurd," 
"infidel," " blasphemous," "shallow philosophy," "sickly sen- 
timentalism," and the like, are among the favorite missiles of 
these defenders of the truth. They are of a sort whose fre- 
quent use is generally supposed to argue the want of a shield 
of reason and a heart of faith. 



204 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

And this brings us to a more close consideration of the 
spirit of this book, characterized by our contemporary as 
" diabolic." And we, also, cannot excuse ourselves from 
marking it as, in this respect, one of the worst books we have 
ever seen. 

It is not merely bitter intolerance, arrogance, and want of 
spiritual perception, which we have to condemn in these 
writers. It is a want of fairness and honor, of which we 
think they must be conscious. We fear they are of those 
who hold the opinion that the end sanctifies the means, and 
who, by pretending to serve the God of truth by other means 
than strict truth, have drawn upon the " ministers of reli- 
gion " the frequent obloquy of " priestcraft." How else are 
we to construe the artful use of the words " dishonest " and 
" infidel," wherever they are likely to awaken the fears and 
prejudices of the ignorant ? 

Of as bad a stamp as any is the part of this book headed 
" Spurious Public Opinion." Here, as in the insinuations 
against Charles Burleigh, we are unable to believe the writers 
to be sincere. Where we think they are, however poor and 
narrow we may esteem their statement, we can respect it, but 
here we cannot. 

Who can believe that such passages as the following stand 
for any thing real in the mind of the writer ? 

" Indeed, there is nothing that can possibly check the spirit 
of murder, but the fear of death. That was all that Cain 
feared ; he did not say, People will put me in prison, but, 
They will put me to death ; and how many other murders he 
may have committed, when released from that fear, the sacred 
writer does not tell us ! " 

Why does not the writer of this passage draw the inference, 
and accuse God of mistake, as he says his opponents accuse 
Him, whenever they attempt to get beyond the Jewish ideas 
of vengeance. He plainly thinks death was the only safe 
penalty in this case of Cain. 



CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 205 

" The reasoning from these drivellings of depravity in mal- 
efactors is to the last degree wretched and absurd. Hard 
pushed indeed must he be in argument who can consent to 
dive down into the polluted heart of a Newgate criminal, in 
order to fish up, from the confessions of his monstrous, unnat- 
ural obduracy, an argument in that very obduracy against the 
fit punishment of his own crimes." 

We can only wish for such a man, that the vicissitudes of 
life may break through the crust of theological arrogance and 
Phariseeism, and force him to " dive down " into the depths 
of his own nature. We should see afterwards whether he 
would be so forward to throw stones at malefactors, so eager 
to hurry souls to what he regards as a final account. 

But we have said enough as to the spirit and tendency of 
this book. We shall only add a few words as to the un- 
worthy use of the word " infidel," in the attempt to fix a 
stigma upon opponents. We feel still more contempt than 
indignation at the desire to work in this way on the unthink- 
ing and ignorant. 

We ourselves are of the number stigmatized by these per- 
sons as sharing an infidel tendency, as are all not enlisted 
under their own sectarian banner. They, on their side, seem 
to us unbelievers in all that is most pure and holy, and in the 
saving grace of love. They do not believe in God, as we 
believe ; they seem to us utterly deficient in the spirit of 
Christ, and to be of the number of those who are always call- 
ing, " Lord, Lord," yet never have known him. We find 
throughout these pages the temper of " Lord, I thank thee 
that I am not as other men are" — hatred of those whom 
they deem Gentiles, and a merciless spirit towards the sinner ; 
yet we do not take upon ourselves to give them the name of 
infidels, and we solemnly call them to trial before the bar of 
the Only Wise and Pure, the Searcher of hearts, to render an 
account of this daring assumption. We ask them in that 
presence, if they are not of the class threatened with " retri- 
18 



206 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

bution " for saying to their brother, " Thou fool ; " and that 
not merely in the heat of anger, but coolly, pertinaciously, 
and in a thousand ways. 

We call to sit in council the spirits of our Puritan fathers, 
and ask if such was the right of individual judgment, of pri- 
vate conscience, they came here to vindicate. And we solicit 
the verdict of posterity as to wdiether the spirit of mercy or 
of vengeance be the more divine, and whether the denuncia- 
tory and personal mode chosen by these writers for carrying 
on this inquiry be the true one. 

We wish most sincerely this book had been a wise and 
noble one. To ascertain just principles, it is necessary that 
the discussion should be full and fair, and both sides ably 
argued. After this has been done, the sense of the world 
can decide. It would be a happiness for which it might seem 
that man at this time of day is ripe, that the opposing parties 
should meet in open lists as brothers, believing each that the 
other desired only that the truth should triumph, and able to 
clasp hands as men of different structure and ways of think- 
ing, but fellow-students of the divine will. O, had we but 
found such an adversary, above the use of artful abuse, or 
the feints of sophistry, able to believe in the noble intention 
of a foe as of a friend, how cheerily would the trumpets ring 
out while the assembled world echoed the signal words, M God 
speed the Right!" The tide of progress rolls onward, 
swelling more and more with the lives of those who would 
fain see all men called to repentance. It must be a strong 
arm, indeed, that can build a dam to stay it even for a mo- 
ment. None such do we see yet ; but we should rejoice in a 
noble and strong opponent, putting forth all his power for 
conscience's sake. God speed the Right ! 



PAET II. 

MISCELLANIES 



FIRST OF JANUARY. 

The new year dawns, and its appearance is hailed by a 
flutter of festivity. Men and women run from house to house, 
scattering gifts, smiles, and congratulations. It is a custom 
that seems borrowed from a better day, unless indeed it be a 
prophecy that such must come. 

For why so much congratulation ? A year has passed ; we 
are nearer by a twelvemonth to the term of this earthly pro- 
bation. It is a solemn thought ; and though the conscious- 
ness of having hallowed the days by our best endeavor, and 
of having much occasion to look to the Ruling Power of all 
with grateful benediction, must, in cases where such feelings 
are unalloyed, bring joy, one would think it must even then 
be a grave joy, and one that would disincline to this loud gay- 
ety in welcoming a new year; another year — in which we 
may, indeed, strive forward in a. good spirit, and find our 
strivings blest, but must surely expect trials, temptations, and 
disappointments from without ; frailty, short-coming, or con- 
vulsion in ourselves. 

If it be appropriate to a reflective habit of mind to ask with 

C207) 



208 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

each night-fall the Pythagorean questions, how much more so 
at the close of the year ! 

" What hast thou done that's worth the doing ? 
And what pursued that's worth pursuing? 
What sought thou knewest thou shouldst shun ? 
What done thou shouldst have left undone ? " 

The intellectual man will also ask, What new truths have 
been opened to me, or what facts presented that will lead to 
the discovery of truths ? The poet and the lover, — What 
new forms of beauty have been presented for my delight, and 
as memorable illustrations of the divine presence — unceasing, 
but oftentimes unfelt by our sluggish natures. 

Are there many men who fail sometimes to ask thorn- 
selves questions to this depth ? who do not care to know 
whether they have done right, or forborne to do wrong ; 
whether their spirits have been enlightened by truth, or 
kindled by beauty ? 

Yes, strange to say, there are many who, despite the nat- 
ural aspirations of the soul and the revelations showered upon 
the world, think only whether they have made money; wheth- 
er the world thinks more highly of them than it did in bygone 
years ; whether wife and children have been in good bodily 
health, and what those who call to pay their respects and 
drink the new year's coffee, will think of their carpets, 
new also. 

How often is it that the rich man thinks even of that pro- 
posed by Dickens as the noblest employment of the sesBOO, 
making the poor happy in the way he likes best for himself, 
by distribution of turkey and plum-pudding! Some, indeed, 
adorn the day with this much grace, though we doubt whether 
it be oftenest those who could each, with ease, make that one 
day a glimpse of comfort to a thousand who pass the other 
winter days in shivering poverty. But some such there are 



FIRST OF JANUARY. 209 

who go about to the dark and frosty dwellings, giving the 
" mite " where and when it is most needed. We knew a lady, 
all whose riches consisted in her good head and two hands. 
Widow of an eminent lawyer, but keeping boarders for a live- 
lihood ; engaged in that hardest of occupations, with her house 
full and her hands full, she yet found time to make and bake 
for new year's day a hundred pies — and not the pie from 
which, being cut, issued the famous four-and-twenty black- 
birds, gave more cause for merriment, or was a fitter " dish 
to set before the king." 

God bless his majesty, the good king, who on such a day 
cares for the least as much as the greatest ; and like Henry 
IV., proposes it as a worthy aim of his endeavor that " every 
poor man shall have his chicken in the pot." This does not 
seem, on superficial survey, such a wonderful boon to crave 
for creatures made in God's own likeness, yet is it one that 
no king could ever yet bestow on his subjects, if we except 
the king of Cockaigne. Our maker of the hundred pies 
is the best prophet we have seen, as yet, of such a blissful 
state. 

But mostly to him who hath is given in material as well 
as in spiritual things, and we fear the pleasures of this day 
are arranged almost wholly in reference to the beautiful, the 
healthy, the wealthy, the witty, and that but few banquets are 
prepared for the halt, the blind, and the sorrowful. But where 
they are, of a surety water turns to wine by inevitable Christ- 
power ; no aid of miracle need be invoked. As for thoughts 
which should make an epoch of the period, we suppose the 
number of these to be in about the same proportion to the 
number of minds capable of thought, that the pearls now ex- 
istent bear to the oysters still subsistent. 

Can we make pearls from our oyster-bed ? At least, let us 
open some of the shells and try. 

Dear public and friends ! we wish you a happy new year. 
We trust that the year past has given earnest of such a one 
18* 



210 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN'. 

in so far as having taught you somewhat how to deserve and 
to appreciate it. 

For ourselves, the months have brought much, though, 
perhaps, superficial instruction. Its scope has been chiefly 
love and hope for all human beings, and among others for 
thyself. 

We have seen many fair poesies of human life, in which, 
however, the tragic thread has not been wanting. We hare 
beheld the exquisite developments of childhood, and gunned 
the heart in its smiles. But also have we discerned the evil 
star looming up that threatened cloud and wreck to its future 
years. We have seen beings of some precious gifts lost irre- 
coverably, as regards this present life, from inheritance of a 
bad organization and unfortunate circumstances of early year-. 
The victims of vice we have observed lying in the gutter, com- 
panied by vermin, trampled upon by sensuality and ignorance, 
and saw those who wished not to rise, and those who strove 
so to do, but fell back through weakness. Sadder and more 
ominous still, we have seen the good man — in many impulses 
and acts of most pure, most liberal, and undoubted goodness 
— yet have we noted a spot of base indulgence, a fibre of 
brutality canker in a vital part this fine plant, and, while we 
could not withdraw love and esteem for the good we could 
not doubt, have wept secretly in the heart for the ill we 
could not deny. We have observed two deaths; one of the 
sinner, early cut down ; one of the just, full of years and 
honor — both were calm ; both professed their reliance on the 
wisdom of a heavenly Father. We have looked upon the 
beauteous shows of nature in undisturbed succession, holy 
moonlight on the snows, loving moonlight on the summer 
fields, the stars which disappoint never and bless ever, the 
flowing waters which soothe and stimulate, a garden of roses 
calling for queens among women, poets and heroes among 
men. We have marked a desire to answer to this call, and 
genius brought rich wine, but spilt it on the way, from her 



FIRST OF JANUARY. 211 

careless, fickle gait ; and virtue tainted with a touch of the 
peacock ; and philosophy, never enjoying, always seeking, 
had got together all the materials for the crowning experi- 
ment, but there was no love to kindle the fire under the fur- 
nace, and the precious secret is not precipitated yet, for the 
pot will not boil to make the gold through your 

" Double, double, 
Toil and trouble," 

if love do not fan the fire. 

We have seen the decay of friendships unable to endure the 
light of an ideal hope — have seen, too, their resurrection in 
a faith and hope beyond the tomb, where the form lies we once 
so fondly cherished. It is not dead, but sleepeth ; and we 
watch, but must weep, too, sometimes, for the night is cold 
and lonely in the place of tombs. 

Nature has appeared dressed in her veil of snowy flowers for 
the bridal. We have seen her brooding over her joys, a young 
mother in the pride and fulness of beauty, and then bearing her 
offspring to their richly ornamented sepulchre, and lately ob- 
served her as if kneeling with folded hands in the stillness of 
prayer, while the bare trees and frozen streams bore witness 
to her patience. 

O, much, much have we seen, and a little learned. Such is 
the record of the private mind ; and yet, as the bright snake- 
skin is cast, many sigh and cry, — 

" The wiser mind 
Mourns less for what Time takes away 
Than what he leaves behind." 

But for ourselves, we find there is kernel in the nut, though 
its ripening be deferred till the late frosty weather, and it 
prove a hard nut to crack even then. Looking at the indi- 
vidual, we see a degree of growth, or the promise of such. 
In the child there is a force which will outlast the wreck, and 



212 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

reach at last the promised shore. The good man, once roused 
from his moral lethargy, shall make atonement for his fault, 
and endure a penance that will deepen and purify his whole 
nature. The poor lost ones claim a new trial in a new life, 
and will there, we trust, seize firmer hold on the good for the 
experience they have had of the bad. 

" We never see the stars 
Till we can see nought else." 

The seeming losses are, in truth, but as pruning of the vine 
to make the grapes swell more richly. 

But how is it with those larger individuals, the nations, 
and that congress of such, the world? We must take a 
broad and superficial view of these, as we have of private life ; 
and in neither case can more be done. The secrets of the 
confessional, or rather of the shrine, do not come on paper, 
unless in poetic form. 

So we will not try to search and mine, but only to look over 
the world from an ideal point of view. 

Here we find the same phenomena repeated ; the good 
nation is yet somehow so sick at heart that you are not sure 
its goodness will ever produce a harmony of life ; over the 
young nation, (our own,) rich in energy and full of glee, brood 
terrible omens ; others, as Poland and Italy, seem irrecover- 
ably lost. They may revive, but we feel as if it must be 
under new forms. 

Forms come and go, but principles are developed and dis- 
played more and more. The caldron simmers, and so great is 
the fire that we expect it soon to boil over, and new fates 
appear for Europe. 

Spain is dying by inches ; England shows symptoms of 
having passed her meridian; Austria lias taken opium, but 
she must awake ere long; France is in an uneasy dream — 
she knows she has been very sick, has had terrible remedies 
administered, and ought to be getting thoroughly well, which 



FIRST OF JANUARY. 213 

she is not. Louis Philippe watches by her pillow, doses and 
bleeds her, bo that she cannot fairly try her strength, and find 
whether something or nothing has been done. But Louis 
Philippe and Metternich most Boon, in the course of nature, 
have this scene i and then there will be none to keep out air 
and light from the chamber, and the patients will be roused 
and ascertain their true condition. 

No power is in the ascending ooorse except the Russian ; 
and that has Boch a condensation of brute force, animated by 
despotic will, that it seems sometimes a- if it might by and 
by stride over Europe and face us across the water. Then 
would be opposed to one another tin- two extremes of Autoc- 
racy and Democracy, ami a trial of strength would ensue be- 
tween the two principles more grand and full than any ever 

"ii this planet, and of which the result mU8l be to bind 
mankind by one chain of convictions. Should, indeed, 1» - 
potism and Democracy meet a- the two slaveholding powers 
of the world, the result can hardly be predicted. But there is 
room in the intervening age for many changes, and the czars 
profess to wish to free their Berfs, a- our planters do to free 
their slaves, and we suppose with equal sincerity; but the 
need of sometimes professing such desires is a deference to 
the progress of principles which bid lair to have their era yet. 

We hope such an era steadfastly, notwithstanding the deeds 
of darkness that have made this year forever memorable in 
our annals. Our nation has indeed shown that the lust of 
gain is at present her ruling passion. She is not only resolute, 
but shameless, about it, and has no doubt or scruple as to lay- 
ing aside the glorious office, assigned her by fate, of herald 
of freedom, light, and peace to the civilized world. 

Yet we must not despair. Even so the Jewish king, 
crowned with all gifts that Heaven could bestow, was intoxi- 
cated by their plenitude, and went astray after the most 
worthless idols. But he was not permitted to forfeit finally 
the position designed for him : he was drawn or dragged back 



214 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

to it; and so shall it be with this nation. There are trials in 
store which shall amend us. 

We must believe that the pure blood shown in the time of 
our revolution still glows in the heart; but the body of our 
nation is full of foreign elements. A large proportion of our 
citizens, or their parents, came here for worldly advantage, 
and have never raised their minds to any idea of destiny or 
duty. More money — more land! are all the watchwords 
they know. They have received the inheritance earned by 
the fathers of the revolution, without their wisdom and vir- 
tue to use it. But this cannot last. The vision of those 
prophetic souls must be realized, else the nation could not 
exist ; every body must at least " have soul enough to save 
the expense of salt," or it cannot be preserved alive. 

What a year it has been with us ! Texas annexed, and 
more annexations in store ; slavery perpetuated, as the most 
striking new feature of these movements. Such are the fruits 
of American love of liberty ! Mormons murdered and driven 
out, as an expression of American freedom of conscience ; 
Cassius Clay's paper expelled from Kentucky ; that is Amer- 
ican freedom of the press. And all these deeds defended on 
the true Russian grounds, " We (the stronger) know what 
you (the weaker) ought to do and be, and it shall be so." 

Thus the principles which it was supposed, some ten years 
back, had begun to regenerate the world, are left without a 
trophy for this past year, except in the spread of Ronge'a 
movement' in Germany, and that of associative and commu- 
nist principles both here and in Europe, which, let the world- 
ling deem as he will about their practicability, he cannot 
deny to be animated by faith in God and a desire for the good 
of man. We must add to these the important symptom- of 
the spread of peace principles. 

Meanwhile, if the more valuable springs of action seem to 
lie dormant for a time, there is a constant invention and per- 
fection of the means of action and communication which seems 



FIRST OF JANUARY. 215 

to say, " Do but wait patiently ; there is something of universal 
importance to be done by and by, and all is preparing for it 
to be universally known and used at once." Else what avail 
magnetic telegraphs, steamers, and rail-cars traversing every 
rood of land and ocean, phonography and the mingling of all 
literatures, till North embraces South and Denmark lays her 
head upon the lap of Italy? Surely there would not be all 
this pomp of preparation as to the means of communion, un- 
less there were like to be something worthy to be communi- 
cated. 

Amid the signs of the breaking down of barriers, we may 
mention the Emperor Nicholas letting his daughter pass from 
the Greek to the Roman church, for the sake of marrying her 
to the Austrian prince. Again, similarity between him and 
us : he, too, is shameless ; for while he signs this marriage 
contract with one hand, he holds the knout in the other to 
drive the Roman Catholic Poles into the Greek church. 
But it is a fatal sign for his empire. 'Tis but the first step 
that costs, and the Russians may look back to the marriage 
of the Grand Duchess Olga, as the Chinese will to the can- 
nonading of the English, as the first sign of dissolution in the 
present form of national life. 

A similar token is given by the violation of etiquette of 
which Mr. Polk is accused in his message. He, at the head 
of a government, speaks of governments and their doings 
straightforward, as he would of persons, and the tower, strong- 
hold of the idea of a former age, now propped up by eti- 
quettes and civilities only, trembles to its foundation. 

Another sign of the times is the general panic which the 
decay of the potato causes. We believe this is not without a 
providential meaning, and will call attention still more to the 
wants of the people at large. New and more provident reg- 
ulations must be brought out, that they may not again be left 
with only a potato between them and starvation. By another 
of these whimsical coincidences between the histories of Aris- 



216 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

tocracy and Democracy, the supply of truffles is also failing. 
The land is losing the "nice things" that the queen (truly a 
young queen) thought might be eaten in place of bread. 
Does not this indicate a period in which it will be felt that 
there must be provision for all — the rich shall not have their 
truffles if the poor are driven to eat nettles, as the French 
and Irish have in bygone ages ? 

The poem of which we here give a prose translation lately 
appeared in Germany. It is written by Moritz Hartmann, and 
contains the gist of the matter. 

Mistress Potato. 

There was a great stately house full of people, who have 
been running in and out of its lofty gates ever since the gray 
times of Olympus. There they wept, laughed, shouted, 
mourned, and, like day and night, came the usual changes of 
joys with plagues and sorrows. Haunting that great house 
up and down, making, baking, and roasting, covering and wait- 
ing on the table, has there lived a vast number of year- a 
loyal serving maid of the olden time — her name was Mrs. 
Potato. She was a still, little, old mother, who wore no baw- 
bles or laces, but always had to be satisfied with her plain, 
every-day clothes ; and unheeded, unhonored, oftentimes jeered 
at and forgotten, she served all day at the kitchen fire, and 
slept at night in the worst room. When she brought the dishes 
to table she got rarely a thankful glance; only at times some 
very poor man would in secret shake kindly her hand. 

Generation after generation passed by. as the trees blossom, 
bear fruit, and wither; but faithful remained the old housemaid, 
always the servant of the last heir. 

But one morning — hear what happened. All the people 
came to table, and lo ! there was nothing to eat, for our good 
old Mistress Potato had not been able to rise from her bed. 
She felt sharp pains creeping through her poor old bones. 
No wonder she was worn out at last ! She had not in all her 
life dared take a day's rest, lest so the poor should starve. 



FIRST OF JANUARY. 217 

Indeed, it is wonderful that her good will should have kept her 
up so long. She must have had a great constitution to begin 
with. 

The guests had to go away without breakfast. They 
were a little troubled, but hoped to make up for it at dinner 
time. But dinner time came, and the table was empty; and 
then, indeed, they began to inquire about the welfare of Cook- 
maid Potato. And up into her dark chamber, where she lay 
on her poor bed, came great and little, young and old, to ask 
after the good creature. " What can be done for her ? " 
u Bring warm clothes, medicine, a better bed." " Lay aside 
your work to help her." " If she dies Ve shall never again 
be able to fill the table ; " and now, indeed, they sang her 
praises. 

O, what a fuss about the sick bed in that moist and mouldy 
chamber! and out doors it was just the same — priests with 
their masses, processions, and prayers, and all the world 
ready to walk to penance, if Mistress Potato could but be 
saved. And the doctors in their wigs, and counsellors in 
masks of gravity, sat there to devise some remedy to avert 
this terrible ill. 

As when a most illustrious dame is recovering from birth 
of a son, so now bulletins inform the world of the health of 
Mistress Potato, and, not content with what they thus learn, 
couriers and lackeys besiege the door ; nay, the king's coach 
is stopping there. Yes! yes! the humble poor maid, 'tis 
about her they are all so frightened ! "Who would ever have 
believed it in days when the table was nicely covered ? 

The gentlemen of pens and books, priests, kings, lords, and 
ministers, all have senses to scent our famine. Natheless 
Mistress Potato gets no better. May God help her for the 
sake, not of such people, but of the poor. For the great it is a 
token they should note, that all must crumble and fall to ruin, 
if they will work and weary to death the poor maid who cooks 
in the kitchen. 

19 



218 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

She lived for you in the dirt and ashes, provided daily for 
poor and rich ; you ought to humble yourselves for her sake. 
Ah, could we hope that you would take a hint, and next time 
pay some heed to the housemaid before she is worn and 
wearied to death ! 

So sighs, rather than hopes, Moritz Hartmann. The wise min- 
isters of England, indeed, seem much more composed than he 
supposes them. They are like the old man who, when he saw 
the avalanche coming down upon his village, said, " It is com- 
ing, but I shall have time to fill my pipe once more." He 
went in to do so, and was buried beneath the ruins. But Sir 
Robert Peel, who is so deliberate, has, doubtless, manna in 
store for those who have lost their customary food. 

Another sign of the times is, that there are left on the 
earth none of the last dynasty of geniuses, rich in so many 
imperial heads. The world is full of talent, but it flows 
downward to water the plain. There are no towering heights, 
no Mont Blancs now. We cannot recall one great genius at 
this day living. The time of prophets is over, and the era 
they prophesied must be at hand ; in its couduct a larger pro- 
portion of the human race shall take part than ever before. 
As prime ministers have succeeded kings in the substantials 
of monarchy, so now shall a house of representatives succeed 
prime ministers. 

Altogether, it looks as if a great time was coming, and that 
time one of democracy. Our country will play a ruling part. 
Her eagle will lead the van ; but whether to soar upward to 
the sun or to stoop for helpless prey, who now dares promise ? 
At present she has scarce achieved a Roman nobleness, a Ro- 
man liberty ; and whether her eagle is less like the vulture, 
and more like the Phoenix, than was the fierce Roman bird, 
we dare not say. May the new year give hopes of the lat- 
ter, even if the bird need first to be purified by fire. 

Jan. 1, 1846. 



NEW YEAR'S DAY. 

It was a beautiful custom among some of the Indian tribes, 
once a year, to extinguish all the fires, and, by a day of fast- 
ing and profound devotion, to propitiate the Great Spirit for 
the coming year. They then produced sparks by friction, and 
lighted up afresh the altar and the hearth with the new fire. 

And this fire was considered as the most precious and sacred 
gift from one person to another, binding them in bonds of 
inviolate friendship for that year, certainly ; with a hope that 
the same might endure through life. From the young to the 
old, it was a token of the highest respect ; from the old to the 
young, of a great expectation. 

To us would that it might be granted to solemnize the new 
year by the mental renovation of which this ceremony was the 
eloquent symbol. Would that we might extinguish, if cnly for 
a day, those fires wker* an uninformed religious ardor has led 
to human sacrifices ; which have warmed the household, but, 
also, prepared pernicious, more than wholesome, viands for 
their use. 

The Indian produced the new spark by friction. It would 
be a still more beautiful emblem, and expressive of the more 
extended powers of civilized men, if we should draw the spark 
from the centre of our system and the source of light, by means 
of the burning glass. 

Where, then, is to be found the new knowledge, the new 
thought, the new hope, that shall begin a new year in a spirit 
not discordant with " the acceptable year of the Lord " ? 
Surely there must be such existing, if latent — some sparks 
of new fire, pure from ashes and from smoke, worthy to be 

(219) 



220 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

offered as a new year's gift. Let us look at the signs of the 
times, to see in what spot this fire shall be Bought — on what 
fuel it may be fed. The ancients poured out libations of the 
choicest juices of earth, to express their gratitude to the Power 
that had enabled them to be sustained from her bosom. They 
enfranchised slaves, to show that devotion to the gods induced 
a sympathy with men. 

Let us look about us to see with what rites, what acts of 
devotion, this modern Christian nation greets the approach 
of the new year ; by what signs she denotes the clear morn- 
ing of a better day, such as may be expected when the eagle 
has entered into covenant with the dove. 

This last week brings tidings that a portion of the inhab- 
itants of Illinois, the rich and blooming region on which exary 
gift of nature has been lavished, to encourage the industry and 
brighten the hopes of man, not only refuses a libation to the 
Power that has so blessed their fields, but declares that the 
dew is theirs, and the sunlight is theirs — that they live from 
and for themselves, acknowledging no obligation and no duty 
to God or to man.* 

One man has freed a slave ; but a great part of the nation 
is now busy in contriving measures that may best rivet the 
fetters on those now chained, and forge them strongest for 
millions yet unborn. 

Selfishness and tyranny no longer wear the mask ; they 
walk haughtily abroad, affronting with their hard-hearted 
boasts and brazen resolves the patience of the sweet heavens. 
National honor is trodden under foot for a national bribe, and 
neither sex nor age defends the redresser of injuries from the 
rage of the injurer. 

Yet, amid these reports which come flying on the paper- 
wings of every day, the scornful laugh of the gnomes, who 

* [In refusing to repeal what are technically and significantly termed her 
" Black Laws," relating to the settlement of colored men, and their rights 
within that state. — Ed.] 



NEW YEAR'S DAT. 221 

begin to believe they can buy all souls with their gold, was 
checked a moment when the aged knight* of the better cause 
answered the challenge — truly in keeping with the " chiv- 
alry " of the time — " You are in the wrong, and I will kick 
you," by holding the hands of the chevalier till those around 
secured him. TTe think the man of old must have held him 
with his eye, as physicians of moral power can insane patients. 
Great as are his exploits for his age, he cannot have much 
bodily strength, unless by miracle. 

The treatment of Mr. Adams and Mr. Hoar seems to show 
that we are not fitted to emulate the savages in preparation 
for the new fire. The Indians knew how to reverence the 
old and the wise. 

Among the manifestos of the day, it is impossible not to 
respect that of the Mexican minister for the manly indigna- 
tion with which he has uttered truths, however deep our mor- 
tification at hearing them. It has been observed for the last 
fifty years, that the tone of diplomatic correspondence was 
much improved, as to simplicity and directness. Once, diplo- 
macy was another name for intrigue, and a paper of this sort 
was expected to be a mesh of artful phrases, through w r hich 
the true meaning might be detected, but never actually 
grasped. Now, here is one w r here an occasion being afforded 
by the unutterable folly of the corresponding party, a minister 
speaks the truth as it lies in his mind, directly and plainly, as 
man speaks to man. His statement will command the sym- 
pathy of the civilized world. 

As to the state papers that have followed, they are of a 
nature to make the Austrian despot sneer, as he counts in his 
oratory the woollen stockings he has got knit by imprisoning 
all the free geniuses in his dominions. He, at least, only ap- 
peals to the legitimacy of blood ; these dare appeal to legiti- 
macy, as seen from a moral point of view. History will class 

* John Quincy Adams. 
19* 



222 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

such claims with the brags of sharpers, who bully their victims 
about their honor, while they Btretch forth their hands for the 

gold they have won with loaded dice. " Do you dare t<> Bay 
the dice are loaded ? Prove it ; and I will shoot you for 
injuring my honor." 

The Mexican makes his gloss on the page of American 
honor ; * the girl | in the Kentucky prison on that of her 
freedom ; the delegate of Massachusetts, \ on that of her 
union. Ye stars, whose image America has placed upon her 
banner, answer us ! Are not your unions of a different .-on ? 
Do they not work to other results ? 

Yet we cannot lightly be discouraged, or alarmed, as to the 
destiny of our country. The whole history of its discovery 
and early progress indicates too clearly the purposes of 
Heaven with regard to it. Could we relinquish the thought 
that it was destined for the scene of a new and illustrious act 
in the great drama, the past would be inexplicable, no less 
than the future without hope. 

Last week, which brought us so many unpleasant notices 
of home affairs, brought also an account of the magnificent 
telescope lately perfected by the Earl of Rosse. With means 
of observation now almost divine, we perceive that some of 
the brightest stars, of which Sirius is one, have dark compan- 
ions, whose presence is, by earthly spectators, only to be de- 
tected from the inequalities they cause in the motions of their 
radiant companions. It was a new and most imposing illus- 
tration how, in carrying out the divine scheme, of which we 
have as yet only spelled out the few first lines, the dark is 
made to wait .upon, and, in the full result, harmonize with, the 
bright. The sense of such pervasive analogies should enlarge 
patience and animate hope. 

* For her treatment of a sister republic in our late war with Mexico, 
f Miss Delia Webster. 

X Hon. Samuel Hoar, sent to Charleston, S. C, to test in the courts her 
laws, and driven thence with his daughter by a mob. 



new tear's day. 223 

Yet, if offences must come, woe be to those by whom they 
come ; and that of men, who sin against a heritage like ours, 
is as that of the backsliders among the chosen people of the 
elder day. We, too, have been chosen, and plain indications 
been given, by a wonderful conjunction of auspicious influ- 
ences, that the ark of human hopes has been placed for the 
present in our charge. Woe be to those who betray this 
trust ! On their heads are to be heaped the curses of unnum- 
bered ages ! 

Can he sleep, who in this past year has wickedly or lightly 
committed acts calculated to injure the few or many ; who 
has poisoned the ears and the hearts he might have rightly 
informed ; who has steeped in tears the cup of thousands ; 
who has put back, as far as in him lay, the accomplishment 
of general good and happiness for the sake of his selfish 
aggrandizement or selfish luxury ; who has sold to a party 
what was meant for mankind ? If such sleep, dreadful shall 
be the waking. 

" Deliver us from evil." In public or in private, it is easy 
to give pain — hard to give pure pleasure ; easy to do evil — 
hard to do good. God does his good in the whole, despite of 
bad men ; but only from a very pure mind will he permit 
original good to proceed in the day. Happy those who can 
feel that during the past year, they have, to the best of their 
knowledge, refrained from evil. Happy those who determine 
to proceed in this by the light of conscience. It is but a 
spark ; yet from that spark may be drawn fire-light enough 
for worlds and systems of worlds — and that light is ever 
new. 

And with this thought rises again the memory of the fair 
lines that light has brought to view in the histories of some 
men. If the nation tends to wrong, there are yet present the 
ten just men. The hands and lips of this great form may be 
impure, but pure blood flows yet within her veins — the blood 
of the noble bands who first sought these shores from the 



224 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHTX. 

British isles and France, for conscience sake. Too many 
have come since, for bread alone. We cannot blame — we 
must not reject them ; but let us teach them, in giving them 
bread, to prize that salt, too, without which all on earth must 
lose its savor. Yes ! let us teach them, not rail at their inev- 
itable ignorance and unenlightened action, but teach them and 
their children as our own ; if we do so, their children and ours 
may yet act as one body obedient to one soul ; and if we act 
rightly now, that soul a pure soul. 

And ye, sable bands, forced hither against your will, kept 
down here now by a force hateful to nature, a will alien from 
God ! It does sometimes seem as if the avenging angel wore 
your hue, and would place in your hands the sword to punish 
the cruel injustice of our fathers, the selfish perversity of the 
sons. Yet are there no means of atonement ? Must the 
innocent suffer with the guilty ? Teach us, O All-Wise, the 
clew out of this labyrinth ; and if we faithfully encounter its 
darkness and dread, and emerge into clear light, wilt thou not 
bid us " go and sin no more " ? 

Meanwhile, let us proceed as we can, picking our steps 
along the slippery road. If we keep the right direction, 
what matters it that we must pass through so much mud ? 
The promise is sure : — 

Angels shall free the feet from stain, to their own hue of 

snow, 
If, undismayed, we reach the hills where the true olives 

grow. 
The olive groves, which we must seek in cold and damp, 
Alone can yield us oil for a perpetual lamp. 
Then sound again the golden horn with promise ever new ; 
The princely deer will ne'er be caught by those that slack 

pursue ; 
Let the " White Doe " of angel hopes be always kept in view. 



NEW year's day. 225 

Yes ! sound again the horn — of hope the golden horn ! 
Answer it, flutes and pipes, from valleys still and lorn ; 
"Warders, from your high towers, with trumps of silver scorn, 
And harps in maidens' bowers, with strings from deep hearts 

torn, — 
All answer to the horn — of hope the golden horn ! 

There is still hope, there is still an America, while private 
lives are ruled by the Puritan, by the Huguenot conscien- 
tiousness, and while there are some who can repudiate, not 
their debts, but the supposition that they will not strive to 
pay their debts to their age, and to Heaven, who gave them 
a share in its great promise. 



ST. VALENTINE'S DAY. 

This merry season of light jokes and lighter love-tokens, in 
which Cupid presents the feathered end of the dart, as if he 
meant to tickle before he wounded the captive, has always 
had a great charm for me. When but a child, I saw Allston's 
picture of the " Lady reading a Valentine," and the mild 
womanliness of the picture, so remote from passion no fesfl 
than vanity, so capable of tenderness, so chastely timid in its 
self-possession, has given a color to the gayest thoughts con- 
nected with the day. From the ruff of Allston's Lady, whose 
clear starch is made to express all rosebud thoughts of girlish 
retirement, the soft unfledged hopes which never yet were 
tempted from the nest, to Sam Weller's Valentine, is indeed 
a broad step, but one which we can take without material 
change of mood. 

But of all the thoughts and pictures associated with the day, 
none can surpass in interest those furnished by the way in 
which we celebrated it last week. 

The Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane is conducted on 
the most wise and liberal plan known at the present day. Its 
superintendent, Dr. Earle, has had ample opportunity to 
observe the best modes of managing this class of diseases both 
here and in Europe, and he is one able, by refined sympathies 
and intellectual discernment, to apply the best that is known 
and to discover more. 

Under his care the beautifully situated establishment at 
Bloomingdale loses every sign of the hospital and the prison, 
not long since thought to be inseparable from such a place. 

(226) 



st. valentine's day. 227 

It is a house of refuge, where those too deeply "wounded or 
disturbed in body or spirit to keep up that semblance or de- 
gree of sanity which the conduct of affairs in the world at 
large demands, may be soothed by gentle care, intelligent 
sympathy, and a judicious attention to their physical welfare, 
into health, or, at least, into tranquillity. 

Dr. Earle, in addition to modes of turning the attention from 
causes of morbid irritation, and promoting brighter and juster 
thoughts, which he uses in common with other institutions, has 
this winter delivered a course of lectures to the patients. We 
were present at one of these some weeks since. The subjects 
touched upon were, often, of a nature to demand as close at- 
tention as an audience of regular students (not college students, 
but real students) can be induced to give. The large assem- 
bly present were almost uniformly silent, to appearance inter- 
ested, and showed a power of decorum and self-government 
often wanting among those who esteem themselves in healthful 
mastery of their morals and manners. "We saw, with great 
satisfaction, generous thoughts and solid pursuits offered, as 
well as light amusements, for the choice of the sick in mind. 
For it is our experience that such sickness arises as often from 
want of concentration as any other cause. One of the noblest 
youths that ever trod this soil was wont to say, " he was never 
tired, if he could only see far enough." He is now 7 gone 
where his view may be less bounded ; but we, who stay be- 
hind, may take the hint that mania, no less than the commonest 
forms of prejudice, bespeaks a mind which does not see far 
enough to correct partial impressions. No doubt, in many 
cases, dissipation of thought, after attention is once distorted 
into some morbid direction, may be the first method of cure ; 
but we are glad to see others provided for those who are ready 
for them. 

St. Valentine's Eve had been appointed for one of the 
dancing parties at the institution, and a few friends from " the 
world's people " invited to be present. 



228 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

At an early hour the company assembled in the well-lighted 
hall, still gracefully wreathed with its Christmas evergreens; 
the music struck up and the company entered. 

And these are the people who, half a century ago, would 
have been chained in solitary cells, screaming out their an- 
guish till silenced by threats or blows, lost, forsaken, hopeless, 
a blight to earth, a libel upon heaven ! 

Now, they are many of them happy, all interested. Even 
those who are troublesome and subject to violent excitement 
in every-day scenes, show here that the power of self-control 
is not lost, only lessened. Give them an impulse strong 
enough, favorable circumstances, and they will begin to use it 
again. They regulate their steps to music ; they restrain 
their impatient impulses from respect to themselves and to 
others. The Power which shall yet shape order from all dis- 
order, and turn ashes to beauty, as violets spring up from 
green graves, hath them also in its keeping. 

The party were well dressed, with care and taste. The 
dancing was better than usual, because there was less of affec- 
tation and ennui. The party was more entertaining, because 
native traits came out more clear from the disguises of vanity 
and tact. 

There was the blue-stocking lady, a mature belle and bel- 
esprit. Her condescending graces, her rounded compliments, 
her girlish, yet "highly intellectual" vivacity, expressed no 
less in her head-dress than her manner, were just that touch 
above the common with which the illustrator of Dickens has 
thought fit to heighten the charms of Mrs. Leo Hunter. 

There was the travelled Englishman, an fait to every thing 
beneath the moon and beyond. With his clipped and glib 
phrases, his bundle of conventionalities carried so neatly 
under his arm, and his " My dear sir," in the perfection of 
cockney dignity, what better could the most select dinner- 
party furnish us in the way of distinguished strangerhood ? 

There was the hoidenish young girl, and the decorous, 



st. valentine's day. 229 

elegant lady smoothing down " the wild little thing." There 
was the sarcastic observer on the folly of the rest; in that, 
the greatest fool of all, unbeloved and unloving. In con- 
trast to this were characters altogether lovely, full of all sweet 
affections, whose bells, if jangled out of tune, still retained 
their true tone. 

One of the best things of the evening was a dance impro- 
vised by two elderly women. They asked the privilege of 
the floor, and, a suitable measure being played, performed this 
dance in a style lively, characteristic, yet moderate enough. 
It was true dancing, like peasant dancing. 

An old man sang comic songs in the style of various nations 
and characters, with a dramatic expression that would have 
commanded applause " on any stage." 

And all was done decently and in order, each biding his 
time. Slight symptoms of impatience here and there were 
easily soothed by the approach of this, truly " good physi- 
cian," the touch of whose hand seemed to possess a talismanic 
power to soothe. We doubt not that all went to their beds 
exhilarated, free from irritation, and more attuned to concord 
than before. Good bishop Valentine! thy feast was well 
kept, and not without the usual jokes and flings at old bach- 
elors, the exchange of sugar-plums, mottoes, and repartees. 

This is the second festival I have kept with those whom 
society has placed, not outside her pale, indeed, but outside 
the hearing of her benison. Christmas I passed in a prison ! 
There, too, I saw marks of the miraculous power of love, 
when guided by a pure faith in the goodness of its source, and 
intelligence as to the design of the creative intelligence. I 
saw enough of its power, impeded as it was by the ignorance 
of those who, eighteen hundred years after the coming of 
Christ, still believe more in fear and force : I saw enough, I 
say, of this power to convince me, if I needed conviction, that 
love is indeed omnipotent, as He said it was. 

A companion, of that delicate nature by which a scar is felt 
20 



230 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

as a wound, was saddened by the thought how very little our 
partialities, undue emotions, and manias need to be exagger- 
ated to entitle us to rank among madmen. I cannot view it 
so. Rather let the sense that, with all our faults and follies, 
there is still a sound spot, a presentiment of eventual health 
in the inmost nature, embolden us to hope, to know it is the 
same with all. A great thinker has spoken of the Greek, in 
highest praise, as " a self-renovating character." But we are 
all Greeks, if we will but think so. For the mentally or 
morally insane, there is no irreparable ill if the principle of 
life can but be aroused. And it can never be finally be- 
numbed, except by our own will. 

One of the famous pictures at Munich is of a madhouse. 
The painter has represented the moral obliquities of society 
exaggerated into madness ; that is to say, self-indulgence has, 
in each instance, destroyed the power to forbear the ill or to 
discern the good. A celebrated writer has added a little 
book, to be used while looking at the picture, and drawn in- 
ferences of universal interest. 

Such would we draw ; such as this ! Let no one dare to 
call another mad who is not himself willing to rank in the 
same class for every perversion and fault of judgment. Let 
no one dare aid in punishing another as criminal who is not 
willing to suffer the penalty due to his own offences. 

Yet, while owning that we are all mad, all criminal, let us 
not despair, but rather believe that the Ruler of all never 
could permit such wide-spread ill but to good ends. It is 
permitted to give us a field to redeem it — 

" to transmute, bereave 
Of an ill influence, and a good receive." 

It flows inevitably from the emancipation of our wills, the 
development of individuality in us. These aims accomplished, 
all shall yet be well ; and it is ours to learn how that good 
time may be hastened. 



ST. valentine's day. 231 

We know no sign of the times more encouraging than the 
increasing nobleness and wisdom of view as to the govern- 
ment of asylums for the insane and of prisons. Whatever is 
learned as to these forms of society is learned for all. There 
is nothing that can be said of such government that must not 
be said, also, of the government of families, schools, and states. 
But we have much to say on this subject, and shall revert to 
it again, and often, though, perhaps, not with so pleasing a 
theme as this of St. Valentine's Eve. 



FOURTH OF JULY. 

The bells ring; the cannon rouse the echoes along the 
river shore ; the boys sally forth with shouts and little flags, 
and crackers enough to frighten all the people they meet from 
sunrise to sunset. The orator is conning for the last time the 
speech in which he has vainly attempted to season with some 
new spice the yearly panegyric upon our country ; its happi- 
ness and glory ; the audience is putting on its best bib and 
tucker, and its blandest expression to listen. 

And yet, no heart, we think, can beat to-day with one pulse 
of genuine, noble joy. Those who have obtained their selfish 
objects will not take especial pleasure in thinking of them to- 
day, while to unbiassed minds must come sad thoughts of 
national honor soiled in the eyes of other nations, of a great 
inheritance risked, if not forfeited. 

Much has been achieved in this country since the Dec- 
laration of Independence. America is rich and strong ; she 
has shown great talent and energy ; vast prospects of ag- 
grandizement open before her. But the noble sentiment 
which she expressed in her early youth is tarnished ; she has 
shown that righteousness is not her chief desire, and her 
name is no longer a watchword for the highest hopes to the 
rest of the world. She knows this, but takes it very ea>ily ; 
she feels that she is growing richer and more powerful, and 
that seems to suffice her. 

These facts are deeply saddening to those who can pro- 
nounce the words "my country" with pride and peace only 
so far as steadfast virtues, generous impulses, find their home 
in that country. They cannot be satisfied with superficial 

(232) 



FOURTH OF JULY. 233 

benefits, with luxuries and the means of obtaining knowledge 
which are multiplied for them. They could rejoice in full 
hands and a busy brain, if the soul were expanding and the 
heart pure ; but, the higher conditions being violated, what is 
done cannot be done for good. 

Such thoughts fill patriot minds as the cannon-peal bursts 
upon the ear. This year, which declares that the people at 
large consent to cherish and extend slavery as one of our 
" domestic institutions," takes from the patriot his home. This 
year, which attests their insatiate love of wealth and power, 
quenches the flame upon the altar. 

Yet there remains that good part which cannot be taken 
away. If nations go astray, the narrow path may always be 
found and followed by the individual man. It is hard, hard 
indeed, when politics and trade are mixed up with evils so 
mighty that he scarcely dares touch them for fear of being 
defiled. He finds his activity checked in great natural out- 
lets by the scruples of conscience. He cannot enjoy the free 
use of his limbs, glowing upon a favorable tide ; but strug- 
gling, panting, must fix his eyes upon his aim, and fight against 
the current to reach it. It is not easy, it is very hard just 
now, to realize the blessings of independence. 

For what is independence if it do not lead to freedom ? — 
freedom from fraud and meanness, from selfishness, from 
public opinion so far as it does not agree with the still, small 
voice of one's better self? 

Yet there remains a great and worthy part to play. This 
country presents great temptations to ill, but also great in- 
ducements to good. Her health and strength are so remarka- 
ble, her youth so full of life, that disease cannot yet have 
taken deep hold of her. It has bewildered her brain, made 
her steps totter, fevered, but not yet tainted, her blood. Things 
are still in that state when ten just men may save the city. 
A few men are wanted, able to think and act upon principles 
of an eternal value. The safety of the country must lie in a 
20* 



234 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

few such men ; men who have achieved the genuine inde- 
pendence, independence of wrong, of violence, of falsehood. 

We want individuals to whom all eyes may turn as exam- 
ples of the practicability of virtue. We want shining exam- 
ples. We want deeply-rooted characters, who cannot be 
moved by flattery, by fear, even by hope, for they work in 
faith. The opportunity for such men is great; they will not 
be burned at the stake in their prime for bearing witness to 
the truth, yet they will be tested most severely in their ad- 
herence to it. There is nothing to hinder them from learning 
what is true and best ; no physical tortures will be inflicted on 
them for expressing it. Let men feel that in private lives, 
more than in public measures, must the salvation of the 
country lie. If that country has so widely veered from the 
course she prescribed to herself, and that the hope of the 
world prescribed to her, it must be because she had not men 
ripened and confirmed for better things. They leaned too 
carelessly on one another; they had not deepened and puri- 
fied the private lives from which the public vitality must 
spring, as the verdure of the plain from the fountains of the 
hills. 

What a vast influence is given by sincerity alone. The 
bier of General Jackson has lately passed, upbearing a golden 
urn. The men who placed it there lament his departure, and 
esteem the measures which have led this country to her pres- 
ent position wise and good. The other side esteem them un- 
wise, unjust, and disastrous in their consequences. But both 
respect him thus far, that his conduct was boldly sincere. The 
sage of Quincy! Men differ in their estimate of his abilities. 
None, probably, esteem his mind as one of the first magnitude. 
But both sides, all men, are influenced by the bold integrity 
of his character. Mr. Calhoun speaks straight out what he 
thinks. So far as this straightforwardness goes, he confers 
the benefits of virtue. If a character be uncorrrpted, what- 
ever bias it takes, it thus far is good and does good. It may 



FOURTH OF JULY. 235 

help others to a higher, wiser, larger independence than 
its own. 

We know not where to look for an example of all or many 
of the virtues we would seek from the man who is to begin 
the new dynasty that is needed of fathers of the country. 
The country needs to be born again; she is polluted with the 
lust of power, the lust of gain. She needs fathers good 
enough to be godfathers — men who will stand sponsors at 
the baptism with all they possess, with all the goodness they 
can cherish, and all the wisdom they can win, to lead this 
child the way she should go, and never one step in another. 
Are there not in schools and colleges the boys who will be- 
come such men ? Are there not those on the threshold of 
manhood who have not yet chosen the broad way into which 
the multitude rushes, led by the banner on which, strange to 
say, the royal Eagle is blazoned, together with the word Ex- 
pediency ? Let them decline that road, and take the narrow, 
thorny path where Integrity leads, though with no prouder em- 
blem than the Dove. They may there find the needed remedy, 
which, like the white root, detected by the patient and re- 
solved Odysseus, shall have power to restore the herd of men, 
disguised by the enchantress to whom they had willingly 
yielded in the forms of brutes, to the stature and beauty 
of men. 



FIRST OF AUGUST. 

Among- the holidays of the year, some portion of our 
people borrow one from another land. They borrow what 
they fain would own, since their doing so would increase, 
not lessen, the joy and prosperity of the present owner. 
It is a holiday not to be celebrated, as others are, with 
boast, and shout, and gay procession, but solemnly, yet 
hopefully ; in prayer and humiliation for much ill now 
existing ; in faith that the God of good will not permit 
such ill to exist always ; in aspiration to become his 
instruments for removal. 

We borrow this holiday from England. We know not that 
she could lend us another such. Her career has been one of 
selfish aggrandizement. To carry her flag wherever the 
waters flow ; to leave a strong mark of her footprint on every 
shore, that she might return and claim its spoils; to main- 
tain in every way her own advantage, — is and has been her 
object, as much as that of any nation upon earth. The plun- 
dered Hindoo, the wronged Irish, — for ourselves we must 
add the outraged Chinese, (for we look on all that has been 
written about the right of that war as mere sophistry,) — no 
less than Napoleon, walking up and down, in his u tarred 
great-coat," in the unwholesome lodge at St. Helena, — all 
can tell whether she be righteous or generous in her con- 
quests. Nay, let myriads of her own children say whether 
she will abstain from sacrificing, mercilessly, human freedom, 
happiness, and the education of immortal souls, for the sake 
of gains of money ! We speak of Napoleon, for we must 

(236) 



FIRST OF AUGUST. 237 

ever despise, with most profound contempt, the use she made 
of her power on that occasion. She had been the chief means 
of liberating Europe from his tyranny, and, though it was for 
her own sake, we must commend and admire her conduct and 
resolution thus far. But the unhandsome, base treatment of 
her captive, has never been enough contemned. Any private 
gentleman, in chaining up the foe that had put himself in his 
power, would at least have given him lodging, food, and 
clothes to his liking, and a civil turnkey — and a great na- 
tion could fail in this ! O, it was shameful, if only for the 
vulgarity of feeling evinced ! All this we say, because we 
are sometimes impatient of England's brag on the subject 
of slavery. Freedom ! Because she has done one good 
act, is she entitled to the angelic privilege of being the 
champion of freedom ? 

And yet it is true that once she nobly awoke to a sense of 
what was right and wise. It is true that she also acted out 
that sense — acted fully, decidedly. She was willing to 
make sacrifices, even of the loved money. She has not let 
go the truth she then laid to heart, and continues the resolute 
foe of man's traffic in men. We must bend low to her as we 
borrow this holiday — the anniversary of the emancipation 
of slaves in the West Indies. We do not feel that the extent 
of her practice justifies the extent of her preaching; yet we 
must feel her to be, in this matter, an elder sister, entitled to 
cry shame to us. And if her feelings be those of a sister 
indeed, how must she mourn to see her next of kin pushing 
back, as far as in her lies, the advance of this good cause, 
binding those whom the old world had awakened from its sins 
enough to loose ! But courage, sister ! All is not yet lost ! 
There is here a faithful band, determined to expiate the 
crimes that have been committed in the name of liberty. 
On this day they meet and vow themselves to the service ; 
and, as they look in one another's glowing eyes, they read 



238 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

there assurance that the end is not yet, and that they, forced 
as they are 

"To keep in company with Pain, 
And Fear, and Falsehood, miserable train," 

" Turn that necessity to glorious gain," 

" Transmute them and subdue." 

Indeed, we do not see that they " bate a jot of heart or 
hope," and it is because they feel that the power of the Great 
Spirit, and its peculiar workings in the spirit of this age, are 
with them. There is action and reaction all the time ; and 
though the main current is obvious, there are many little 
eddies and counter-currents. Mrs. Norton writes a poem on 
the sufferings of the poor, and in it she, as episode, tunefully 
laments the sufferings of the Emperor of all the Russias for 
the death of a beloved daughter. And it was a deep grief; 
yet it did not soften his heart, or make it feel for man. The 
first signs of his recovered spirits are in new efforts to crush 
out the heart of Poland, and to make the Jews lay aside the 
hereditary marks of their national existence — to them a sacri- 
fice far worse than death. But then, — Count Apraxin is 
burned alive by his infuriate serfs, and the life of a serf is 
far more dog-like, or rather machine-like, than that of our 
slaves. Still the serf can rise in vengeance — can admon- 
ish the autocrat that humanity may yet turn again and 
rend him. 

So with us. The most shameful deed has been done that 
ever disgraced a nation, because the most contrary to con- 
sciousness of right. Other nations have done wickedly, but 
we have surpassed them all in trampling under foot the prin- 
ciples that had been assumed as the basis of our national eXr 
istence, and shown a willingness to forfeit our honor in the 
face of the world. 

The following stanzas, written by a friend some time since, 



FIRST OP AUGUST. 239 

on the fourth of July, exhibit these contrasts so forcibly, that 
we cannot do better than insert them here : — 

Loud peal of bells and beat of drums 

Salute approaching dawn ; 
And the deep cannon's fearful bursts 

Announce a nation's morn. 

Imposing ranks of freemen stand 

And claim their proud birthright; 
Impostors, rather ! thus to brand 

A name they hold so bright. 

Let the day see the pageant show; 

Float, banners, to the breeze ! 
Shout Liberty's great name throughout 

Columbia's lands and seas ! 

Give open sunlight to the free ; 

But for Truth's equal sake, 
When night sinks down upon the land, 

Proclaim dead Freedom's wake ! 

Beat, muffled drums ! Toll, funeral bell ! 

Nail every flag half-mast ; 
For though we fought the battle well, 

"We're traitors at the last. 

Let the whole nation join in one 

Procession to appear ; 
We and our sons lead on the front, 

Our slaves bring up the rear. 

America is rocked within 

Thy cradle, Liberty, 
By Africa's poor, palsied hand — 

Strange inconsistency ! 



240 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

We've dug one grave as deep as Death, 

For Tyranny's black sin ; 
And dug another at its side 

To thrust our brother in. 

We challenge all the world aloud, — 

" Lo, Tyranny's deep grave ! " 
And all the world points back and cries, 

" Thou fool ! Behold thy slave ! " 

Yes, rally, brave America, 

Thy noble hearts and free 
Around the Eagle, as he soars 

Upward in majesty. 

One half thy emblem is the bird, 

Out-facing thus the day ; 
But wouldst thou make him wholly thine, — 

Give him a helpless prey ! 

This should be sung in Charleston at nine o'clock in the 
evening, when the drums are heard proclaiming " dead Free- 
dom's wake," as they summon to their homes, or to the cus- 
tody of the police, every human being with a black skin who 
is found walking without a pass from a white. Or it might 
have been sung to advantage the night after Charleston had 
shown her independence and care of domestic institutions by 
expulsion of the venerable envoy of Massachusetts ! Its 
expression would seem even more forcible than now, when 
sung so near the facts, when the eagle soars so close above 
his prey. 

How deep the shadow ! yet cleft by light. There is a 
counter-current that sets towards the deep. We are inclined 
to weigh as of almost equal weight with all we have had to 
trouble us as to the prolongation of slavery, the hopes that 
may be gathered from the course of such a man as Cassius 



FIRST OF AUGUST. 241 

M. Clay, — a man open to none of the accusations brought to 
diminish the influence of abolitionists in general, for he has 
eaten the bread wrought from slavery, and has shared the 
education that excuses the blindness of the slaveholder. He 
speaks as one having authority ; no one can deny that he 
knows where he is. In the prime of manhood, of talent, and 
the energy of a fine enthusiasm, he comes forward with deed 
and word to do his devoir in this cause, never to leave the 
field till he can take with him the wronged wretches rescued 
by his devotion. 

Now he has made this last sacrifice of the prejudices of 
" southern chivalry," more persons than ever will be ready to 
join the herald's cry, " God speed the right ! " And we cannot 
but believe his noble example will be followed by many young 
men in the slaveholding ranks, brothers in a new, sacred band, 
vowed to the duty, not merely of defending, but far more 
sacred, of purifying their homes. 

The event of which this day is the anniversary, affords a 
sufficient guarantee of the safety and practicability of strong 
measures for this purification. Various accounts are given to 
the public, of the state of the British West Indies, and the 
foes of emancipation are of course constantly on the alert to 
detect any unfavorable result which may aid them in opposing 
the good work elsewhere. But through all statements these 
facts shine clear as the sun at noonday, that the measure was 
there carried into effect with an ease and success, and has 
shown in the African race a degree of goodness, docility, ca- 
pacity for industry and self-culture entirely beyond or opposed 
to the predictions which darkened so many minds with fears. 
Those fears can never again be entertained or uttered with 
the same excuse. One great example of the safety of doing 
right exists ; true, there is but one of the sort, but volumes 
may be preached from such a text. 

"We, however, preach not ; there are too many preachers 
already in the field, abler, more deeply devoted to the cause. 
21 



242 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Endless are the sermons of these modern crusaders, these 
ardent "sons of thunder," who have pledged themselves never 
to stop or falter till this one black spot be purged away from 
the land which gave them birth. They cry aloud and spare 
not ; they spare not others, but then, neither do they spare them- 
selves ; and such are ever the harbingers of a new advent of 
the Holy Spirit. Our venerated friend, Dr. Channing, sainted in 
more memories than any man who has left us in this nineteenth 
century, uttered the last of his tones of soft, solemn, convin- 
cing, persuasive eloquence, on this day and this occasion. 
The hills of Lenox laughed and were glad as they heard him 
who showed in that last address (an address not only to the 
men of Lenox, but to all men, for he was in the highest sense 
the friend of man) the unsullied purity of infancy, the indig- 
nation of youth at vice and wrong, informed and tempered 
by the mild wisdom of age. It is a beautiful fact that this 
should have been the last public occasion of his life. 

Last year a noble address was delivered by R. W. Emer- 
son, in which he broadly showed the juste milieu views upon 
this subject in the holy light of a high ideal day. The truest 
man grew more true as he listened ; for the speech, though it 
had the force of fact and the lustre of thought, was chiefly 
remarkable as sharing the penetrating quality of the '' .-till 
small voice," most often heard when no man speaks. Now it 
spoke through a man ; and no personalities, or prejudices, or 
passions could be perceived to veil or disturb its silver sound. 

These speeches are on record ; little can be said that is not 
contained in them. But we can add evermore our aspirations 
for thee, O our country ! that thou mayst not long need to 
borrow a holy day; not long have all thy festivals blackened 
by falsehood, tyranny, and a crime for which neither man be- 
low nor God above can much longer pardon thee. For igno- 
rance may excuse error; but thine — it is vain to deny it — is 
conscious wrong, and vows thee to the Mammon whose wages 
are endless remorse or final death. 



THANKSGIVING. 

"Canst thou give thanks for aught that has heen given 
Except by making earth more worthy heaven ? 
Just stewardship the Master hoped from thee ; 
Harvests from time to bless eternity." 

Thanksgiving is peculiarly the festival day of New Eng- 
land. Elsewhere, other celebrations rival its attractions, but 
in that region where the Puritans first returned thanks that 
some among them had been sustained by a great hope and 
earnest resolve amid the perils of the ocean, wild beasts, and 
famine, the old spirit which hallowed the day still lingers, and 
forbids that it should be entirely devoted to play and plum- 
pudding. 

And yet, as there is always this tendency ; as the twelfth- 
night cake is baked by many a hostess who would be puzzled 
if you asked her, " Twelfth night after or before what ? " and 
the Christmas cake by many who know no other Christmas 
service, so it requires very serious assertion and proof from 
the minister to convince his parishioners that the turkey and 
plum-pudding, which are presently to occupy his place in their 
attention, should not be the chief objects of the day. 

And in other regions, where the occasion is observed, it is 
still more as one for a meeting of families and friends to the 
enjoyment of a good dinner, than for any higher purpose. 

This, indeed, is one which we want not to depreciate. If 
this manner of keeping the day be likely to persuade the 
juniors of the party that the celebrated Jack Horner is the 
prime model for brave boys, and that grandparents are 
chiefly to be respected as the givers of grand feasts yet a 

(243) 



244 ' LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

meeting in the spirit of kindness, however dull and blind, is 
not wholly without use in healing differences and promoting 
good intentions. The instinct of family love, intended by 
Heaven to make those of one blood the various and harmo- 
nious organs of one mind, is never wholly without good influ- 
ence. Family love, I say, for family pride is never without 
bad influence, and it too often takes the place of its mild and 
healthy sister. 

Yet where society is at all simple, it is cheering to see the 
family circle thus assembled, if only because its patriarchal 
form is in itself so excellent. The presence of the children 
animates the old people, while the respect and attention they 
demand refine the gayety of the young. Yes, it is cheering 
to see, in some large room, the elders talking near the bright 
fire, while the cousins of all ages are amusing themselves in 
knots. Here is almost all the good, and very little of the ill, 
that can be found in society, got together merely for amuse- 
ment. 

Yet how much nobler, more exhilarating, and purer would 
be the atmosphere of that circle if the design of its pious 
founders were remembered by those who partake this festi- 
val ! if they dared not attend the public jubilee till private 
retrospect of the past year had been taken in the spirit of the 
old rhyme, which we all bear in mind if not in heart, — 

" What hast thou done that's worth the doing, 
And what pursued that's worth pursuing ? 
What sought thou knew'st that thou shouldst shun, 
What done thou shouldst have left undone ? " 

A crusade needs also to be made this day into the wild places of 
each heart, taking for its device, " Lord, cleanse thou me from 
secret faults; keep back thy servant also from presumptuow 
sins." Would not that circle be happy as if music, from invisi- 
ble agents, floated through it if each member of it considered 
every other member as a bequest from heaven ; if he sup- 



THANKSGIVING. 245 

posed that the appointed nearness in blood or lot was a sign 
to him that he must exercise his gifts of every kind as given 
peculiarly in their behalf; that if richer in temper, in talents, 
in knowledge, or in worldly goods, here was the innermost 
circle of his poor ; that he must clothe these naked, whether 
in body or mind, soothing the perverse, casting light into the 
narrow chamber, or, most welcome task of all ! extending a 
hand at the right moment to one uncertain of his way ? It is 
this spirit that makes the old man to be revered as a Nestor, 
rather than put aside like a worn-out garment. It is such a 
spirit that sometimes has given to the young child a ministry 
as of a parent in the house. 

But, if charity begin at home, it must not end there ; and, 
while purifying the innermost circle, let us not forget that it 
depends upon the great circle, and that again on it ; that no 
home can be healthful in which are not cherished seeds of 
good for the world at large. Thy child, thy brother, are given 
to thee only as an example of what is due from thee to all 
men. It is true that, if you, in anger, call your brother fool, 
no deeds of so-called philanthropy shall save you from the 
punishment ; for your philanthropy must be from the love of 
excitement, not the love of man, or of goodness. But then 
you must visit the Gentiles also, and take time for knowing 
what aid the woman of Samaria may need. 

A noble Catholic writer, in the true sense as well as by 
name a Catholic, describes a tailor as giving a dinner on an 
occasion which had brought honor to his house, which, though 
a humble, was not a poor house. In his glee, the tailor was 
boasting a little of the favors and blessings of his lot, when 
suddenly a thought stung him. He stopped, and cutting away 
half the fowl that lay before him, sent it in a dish with the 
best knives, bread, and napkin, and a brotherly message that 
was better still, to a widow near, who must, he knew, be 
sitting in sadness and poverty among her children. His little 
daughter was the messenger. If parents followed up the 
21* 



246 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

indulgences heaped upon their children at Thanksgiving din- 
ners with similar messages, there would not be danger that 
children should think enjoyment of sensual pleasures the only 
occasion that demands Thanksgiving. 

And suppose, while the children were absent on their 
errands of justice, as they could not fail to think them, if they 
compared the hovels they must visit with their own comfort- 
able homes, their elders, touched by a sense of right, should 
be led from discussion of the rivalries of trade or fashion to 
inquiry whether they could not impart of all that was theirs, 
not merely one poor dinner once a year, but all their mental 
and material wealth for the benefit of all men. If they do not 
sell it all at once, as the rich young man was bid to do as a 
test of his sincerity, they may find some way in which it could 
be invested so as to show enough obedience to the law and 
the prophets to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

And he who once gives himself to such thoughts will find 
it is not merely moral gain for which he shall return thanks 
another year with the return of this day. In the present 
complex state of human affairs, you cannot be kind unless you 
are wise. Thoughts of amaranthine bloom will spring up in 
the fields ploughed to give food to suffering men. It would, 
indeed, seem to be a simple matter at first glance. " Lovest 
thou me?" — " Feed my lambs." But now we have not only 
to find pasture, but to detect the lambs under the disguise of 
wolves, and restore them by a spell, like that the shepherd 
used, to their natural form and whiteness. 

And for this present day appointed for Thanksgiving, we 
may say that if we know of so many wrongs, woes, and errors 
in the world yet unredressed ; if in this nation recent decisions 
have shown a want of moral discrimination in important sub- 
jects, that make us pause and doubt whether we can join in 
the formal congratulations that we are still bodily alive, unas- 
eailed by the ruder modes of warfare, and enriched with the 
fatness of the land; yet, on the other side, we know of causes 



THANKSGIVING. 247 

not so loudly proclaimed why we should give thanks. Abun- 
dantly and humbly we must render them for the movement, 
now sensible in the heart of the civilized world, although it 
has not pervaded the entire frame — for that movement of 
contrition and love which forbids men of earnest thought to 
eat, drink, or be merry while other men are steeped in igno- 
rance, corruption, and woe ; which calls the king from his 
throne of gold, and the poet from his throne of mind, to lie 
with the beggar in the kennel, or raise him from it ; which 
says to the poet, " You must reform rather than create a 
world," and to him of the golden crown, " You cannot long 
remain a king unless you are also a man." 

Wherever this impulse of social or political reform darts up 
its rill through the crusts of selfishness, scoff and dread also 
arise, and hang like a heavy mist above it. But the voice of 
the rill penetrates far enough for those who have ears to hear. 
And sometimes it is the case that " those who came to scoff 
remain to pray." In two articles of reviews, one foreign and 
one domestic, which have come under our eye within the last 
fortnight, the writers who began by jeering at the visionaries, 
seemed, as they wrote, to be touched by a sense that without a 
high and pure faith none can have the only true vision of the 
intention of God as to the destiny of man. 

We recognized as a happy omen that there is cause for 
thanksgiving, and that our people may be better than they seem, 
the recent meeting to organize an association for the benefit of 
prisoners. We are not, then, wholly Pharisees. We shall not 
ask the blessing of this day in the mood of, " Lord, I thank 
thee that I, and my son, and my brother, are not as other 
men are, — not as those publicans imprisoned there," while 
the still small voice cannot make us hear its evidence that, 
but for instruction, example, and the " preventing God," every 
sin that can be named might riot in our hearts. The prisoner, 
too, may become a man. Neither his open nor our secret 
fault must utterly dismay us. We will treat him as if he had 



248 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

a soul. We will not dare to hunt him into a beast of prey, or 
trample him into a serpent. We will give him some crumbs 
from the table which grace from above and parental love be- 
low have spread for us, and perhaps he will recover from 
these ghastly ulcers that deform him now. 

We were much pleased with the spirit of the meeting for 
the benefit of prisoners, to which we have just alluded. It 
was simple, business-like, in a serious, affectionate temper. 
The speakers did not make phrases or compliments — did not 
slur over the truth. The audience showed a ready vibration 
to the touch of just and tender feeling. The time was evi- 
dently ripe for this movement. We doubt not that many now 
darkened souls will give thanks for the ray of light that will 
have been let in by this time next year. It is but a grain of 
mustard seed, but the promised tree will grow swiftly if tended 
in a pure spirit ; and the influence of good measures in any 
one place will be immediate in this province, as has been the 
case with every attempt in behalf of another sorrowing class, 
the insane. 

While reading a notice of a successful attempt to have 
musical performances carried through in concert by the insane 
at Rouen, we were forcibly reminded of a similar performance 
we heard a few weeks ago at Sing Sing. There the female 
prisoners joined in singing a hymn, or rather choral, which 
describes the last thoughts of a spirit about to be enfranchised 
from the body; each stanza of which ends with the words, 
"All is well;" and they sang it — those Buffering, degraded 
children of society — with as gentle and resigned an expres- 
sion as if they were sure of going to sleep in the arms of a 
pure mother. The good spirit that dwelt in the music made 
them its own. And shall not the good spirit of religious sym- 
pathy make them its own also, and more permanently? We 
shall see. Should the morally insane, by wise and gentle care, 
be won back to health, as the wretched bedlamites have been, 
will not the angels themselves give thanks ? And will any 



THANKSGIVING. 249 

man dare take the risk of opposing plans that afford even a 
chance of such a result ? 

Apart also from good that is public and many-voiced, does 
not each of us know, in private experience, much to be thank- 
ful for? Not only the innocent and daily pleasures that we 
have prized according to our wisdom ; of the sun and starry 
skies, the fields of green, or snow scarcely less beautiful, the 
loaf eaten with an appetite, the glow of labor, the gentle signs 
of common affection ; but have not some, have not many of 
us, cause to be thankful for enfranchisement from error or 
infatuation ; a growth in knowledge of outward things, and 
instruction within the soul from a higher source. Have we 
not acquired a sense of more refined enjoyments ; clear con- 
victions ; sometimes a serenity in which, as in the first days 
of June, all things grow, and the blossom gives place to fruit ? 
Have we not been weaned from what was unfit for us, or un- 
worthy our care ? and have not those ties been drawn more 
close, and are not those objects seen more distinctly, which 
shall forever be worthy the purest desires of our souls? 
Have we learned to do any thing, the humblest, in the service 
and by the spirit of the power which meaneth all things well ? 
If so, we may give thanks, and, perhaps, venture to offer our 
solicitations in behalf of those as yet less favored by circum- 
stances. When even a few shall dare do so with the whole 
heart — for only a pure heart can " avail much " in such 
prayers — then all shall soon be well. 



CHRISTMAS. 

Our festivals come rather too near together, since we have 
so few of them ; thanksgiving, Christmas, new year's day, — 
and then none again till July. We know not but these four, 
with the addition of " a day set apart for fasting and prayer," 
might answer the purposes of rest and edification, as well as 
a calendar full of saints' days, if they were observed in a bet- 
ter spirit. But thanksgiving is devoted to good dinners ; 
Christmas and new year's days, to making presents and com- 
pliments ; fast day, to playing at cricket and other games ; 
and the fourth of July, to boasting of the past, rather than 
to plans how to deserve its benefits and secure its fruits. 

We value means of marking time by appointed days, be 
cause man, on one side of his nature so ardent and aspiring, 
is on the other so slippery and indolent a being, that he needs 
incessant admonitions to redeem the time. Time flows on 
steadily, whether he regards it or not ; yet unless he keep 
time, there is no music in that flow. The sands drop with 
inevitable speed, yet each waits long enough to receive, if it 
be ready, the intellectual touch that should turn it to a sand 
of gold. 

Time, says the Grecian fable, is the parent of Power ; 
Power is the father of Genius and Wisdom ; Time, then, is 
grandfather of the noblest of the human family, and we must 
respect the aged sire whom we see on the frontispiece of the 
almanacs, and believe his scythe was meant to mow down 
harvests ripened for an immortal use. 

Yet the best provision made by the mind of society, at 
large, for these admonitions, soon loses its efficacy, and re- 

(250) 



CHRISTMAS. 251 

quires that individual earnestness, individual piety, should 
continually reanimate the most beautiful form. The world 

baa never seen arrangements which might more naturally 
offer good suggestions, than those of the church of Rome. 
The founders of that church Btood very near a history, radi- 
ant at every page with divine light All their rites and cer- 
emonial days illustrate facts of a universal interest. But the 
lite with which piety, first, and afterwards the genius of great 
artists, invested these symbols, waned at last, except to a 
thoughtful few. Reverence was forgotten in the multitude 
of genulleetions ; the rosary became a string of beads, rather 
than a series of religious meditations, and -the glorious com- 
pany of saints and martyrs " were not so much regarded as 
the teachers of heavenly truth, as intercessors to obtain for 
their votaries the temporal gifts they craved. 

Yet we regret that some of these symbols had not been 
more reverenced by Protestant.-, as the possible occasion of 
good thoughts. And among others we regret that the day set 
ppart to commemorate the birth of Jesus should have been 
stripped, even by those who observe it, of many impressive 
and touching accessories. 

If ever there was an occasion on which the arts could 
become all but omnipotent in the service of a holy thought, 
it is this of the birth of the child Jesus. In the palmy days 
of the Catholic religion, they may be said to have wrought 
miracles in its behalf; and, in our colder time, when we 
rather reflect that light from a different point of view, than 
transport ourselves into it, — who, that has an eye and ear 
faithful to the soul, is not conscious of inexhaustible benefits 
from some of the works by which sublime geniuses have ex- 
pressed their ideas in the adorations of the Magi and the 
Shepherds, in the Virgin with the infant Jesus, or that work 
which expresses what Christendom at large has not even 
begun to realize, — that work which makes us conscious, as 
we listen, why the soul of man was thought worthy and able 



252 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

to upbear a cross of sucli dreadful weight — the Messiah of 
Handel. 

Christinas would seem to be the day peculiarly sacred to 
children, and something of this feeling here shows itself 
among us, though rather from German influence than of 
native growth. The evergreen tree is often reared for the 
children on Christmas evening, and its branches cluster with 
little tokens that may, at least, give them a sense that the 
world is rich, and that there are some in it who care to 
bless them. It is a charming sight to see their glittering 
eyes, and well worth much trouble in preparing the Christ- 
mas tree. 

Yet, on this occasion as on all others, we could wish to 
see pleasure offered them in a form less selfish than it is. 
"When shall we read of banquets prepared for the halt, the 
lame, and the blind, on the day that is said to have brought 
their Friend into the world? When will the children be taught 
to ask all the cold and ragged little ones, whom they have seen 
during the day wistfully gazing at the displays in the shop- 
windows, to share the joys of Christmas eve ? 

We borrow the Christmas tree from Germany. Would 
that we might but borrow with it that feeling which pervades 
all their stories about the influence of the Christ child ; and 
has, I doubt not, — for the spirit of literature is always, though 
refined, the essence of popular life, — pervaded the conduct of 
children there ! 

We will mention two of these as happily expressive of dif- 
ferent sides of the desirable character. One is a legend of the 
Saint Hermann Joseph. The legend runs, that this saint, 
when a little boy, passed daily by a niche where was an 
image of the Virgin and Child, and delighted there to pay his 
devotions. His heart was so drawn towards the holy child, 
that, one daj, having received what seemed to him a gift 
truly precious, — to wit, a beautiful red and yellow apple, — 
he ventured to offer it, with his prayer. To his unspeakable 



CHRISTMAS. 253 

delight, the child put forth its hand and took the apple. 
After that day, never was a gift bestowed upon the little 
Hermann that was not carried to the same place. He needed 
nothing for himself, but dedicated all his childish goods to 
the altar. 

After a while, grief comes. His father, who was a poor 
man, finds it necessary to take him from school and bind him 
to a trade. He communicates his woes to his friends of the 
niche, and the Virgin comforts him, like a mother, and be- 
stows on him money, by means of which he rises, (not to ride 
in a gilt coach like Lord Mayor Whittington,) but to be a 
learned and tender shepherd of men. 

Another still more touching story is that of the holy 
Rupert. Rupert was the only child of a princely house, 
and had something to give besides apples. But his gen- 
erosity and human love were such, that, as a child, he could 
never see poor children suffering without despoiling him-elf 
of all he had with him in their behalf. His mother was, at 
first, displeased at this ; but when he replied, " They are thy 
children too," her reproofs yielded to tears. 

One time, when he had given away his coat to a poor child, 
he got wearied and belated on his homeward way. He lay 
down a while, and fell asleep. Then he dreamed that he was 
on a river shore, and saw a mild and noble old man bathing 
many children. After he had plunged them into the water, 
he would place them on a beautiful island, where they looked 
white and glorious as little angels. Rupert was seized with 
strong desire to join them, and begged the old man to bathe 
him, also, in the stream. But he was answered, " It is not 
yet time." Just then a rainbow spanned the island, and on 
its arch was enthroned the child Jesus, dressed in a coat that 
Rupert knew to be his own. And the child said to the 
others, " See this coat; it is one my brother Rupert has just 
sent to me. He has given us many gifts from his love ; shall 
22 



254 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

we not ask him to join us here ? " And they shouted a musi- 
cal " yes ; " and the child started from his dream. But he 
had lain too long on the damp bank of the river, without his 
coat. A cold and fever soon sent him to join the band of his 
brothers in their home. 

These are legends, superstitions, will you say ? But, in 
casting aside the shell, have we retained the kernel ? The 
image of the child Jesus is not seen in the open street ; does 
his spirit find other means to express itself there ? Protes- 
tantism did not mean, we suppose, to deaden the spirit in ex- 
cluding the form ? 

The thought of Jesus, as a child, has great weight with 
children who have learned to think of him at all. In think- 
ing of him, they form an image of all that the morning of a 
pure and fervent life should be and bring. In former days I 
knew a boy artist, whose genius, at that time, showed high 
promise. He was not more than fourteen years old ; a slight, 
pale boy, with a beaming eye. The hopes and sympathy of 
friends, gained by his talent, had furnished him with a studio 
and orders for some pictures. He had picked up from the 
streets a boy still younger and poorer than himself, to take 
care of the room and prepare his colors : and the two boys 
were as content in their relation as Michael Angelo with his 
Urbino. If you went there you found exposed to view many 
pretty pictures : a Girl with a Dove, the Gnitar Player, 
and such subjects as are commonly supposed to interest at his 
age. But, hid in a corner, and never shown, unless to tlie 
beggar page, or some most confidential friend, was tin- i<al 
object of his love and pride, the slowly growing work of 
secret hours. The subject of this picture was Christ teaching 
the doctors. And in those doctors he had expressed all he 
had already observed of the pedantry and shallow conceit of 
those in whom mature years have not unfolded the soul; 
and in the child, all he felt that early youth should be and 
seek, though, alas ! his own feet failed him on the difficult 



CHRISTMAS. 255 

road. This one record of the youth of Jesus had, at least, 
been much to his mind. 

In earlier days, the little saints thought they best imitated 
the Emanuel by giving apples and coats ; but we know not 
why, in our age, that esteems itself so enlightened, they 
should not become also the givers of spiritual gifts. We see 
in them, continually, impulses that only require a good direc- 
tion to effect infinite good. See the little girls at work for 
foreign missions ; that is not useless. They devote the time 
to a purpose that is not selfish ; the horizon of their thoughts 
is extended. But they are perfectly capable of becoming 
home missionaries as well. The principle of stewardship 
would make them so. 

1 have seen a little girl of thirteen, — who had much service, 
too, to perform, for a hard-working mother, — in the midst of a 
circle of poor children whom she gathered daily to a morning 
school. She took them from the door-steps and the ditches ; 
she washed their hands and faces ; she taught them to read and 
to sew ; and she told them stories that had delighted her own 
infancy. In her face, though in feature and complexion plain, 
was something, already, of a Madonna sweetness, and it had 
no way eclipsed the gayety of childhood. 

I have seen a boy scarce older, brought up for some time 
with the sons of laborers, who, so soon as he found himself 
possessed of superior advantages, thought not of surpassing 
others, but of excelling, and then imparting — and he was 
able to do it. If the other boys had less leisure, and could 
pay for less instruction, they did not suffer for it. He could 
not be happy unless they also could enjoy Milton, and pass 
from nature to natural philosophy. He performed, though in 
a childish way, and in no Grecian garb, the part of Apollo 
amid the herdsmen of Admetus. 

The cause of education would be indefinitely furthered, if, 
in addition to formal means, there were but this principle 
awakened in the hearts of the young, that what they have 



256 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

they must bestow. All are not natural instructors, but a large 
proportion are ; and those who do possess such a talent are 
the best possible teachers to those a little younger than them- 
selves. Many have more patience with the difficulties they 
have lately left behind, and enjoy their power of assisting 
more than those farther removed in age and knowledge do. 

Then the intercourse may be far more congenial and profit- 
able than where the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils, 
as they are sent him by their guardians. Here he need only 
choose those who have a predisposition for what he is best able 
to teach. And, as I would have the so-called higher instruc- 
tion as much diffused in this way as the lower, there would be 
a chance of awakening all the power that now lies latent. 

If a girl, for instance, who has only a passable talent for 
music, but who, from the advantage of social position, has 
been able to gain thorough instruction, felt it her duty to 
teach whomsoever she knew that had such a talent, without 
money to cultivate it, the good is obvious. 

Those who are learning receive an immediate benefit by 
an effort to rearrange and interpret what they learn ; so the 
use of this justice would be twofold. 

Some efforts are made here and there ; nay, sometimes there 
are those who can say they have returned usury for ax^ry gift 
of fate. And, would others make the same experiments, they 
might find Utopia not so far off as the children of this world, 
wise in securing their own selfish ease, would persuade us it 
must always be. 

We have hinted what sort of Christmas box we would wish 
for the children. It would be one full, as that of the child 
Christ must be, of the pieces of silver that were lost and are 
found. But Christmas, with its peculiar associations, hus deep 
interest for men, and women too, no less. It has so in their 
mutual relations. At the time thus celebrated, a pure woman 
saw in her child what the Son of man should be as a child of 
God. She anticipated for him a life of glory to God, peace 



CHRISTMAS. 257 

and good will to man. In every young mother's heart, who 
has any purity of heart, the same feelings arise. But most 
of these mothers let them go without obeying their instruc- 
tions. If they did not, we should see other children — other 
men than now throng our streets. The boy could not inva- 
riably disappoint the mother, the man the wife, who steadily 
demanded of him such a career. 

And man looks upon woman, in this relation, always as he 
should. Does he see in her a holy mother worthy to guard 
the infancy of an immortal soul ? Then she assumes in his 
eyes those traits which the Romish church loved to revere in 
Mary. Frivolity, base appetite, contempt are exorcised ; and 
man and woman appear again in unprofaned connection, as 
brother and sister, the children and the servants of the one 
Divine Love, and pilgrims to a common aim. 

Were all this right in the private sphere, the public would 
soon right itself also, and the nations of Christendom might 
join in a celebration, such as "kings and prophets waited 
for," and so many martyrs died to achieve, of Christ-Mass. 
22* 



MARIANA* 

Among those whom I met in a recent visit at Chicago was 
Mrs. Z., the aunt of an old schoolmate, to whom I impatiently 
hastened, to demand news of Mariana. The answer startled 
me. Mariana, so full of life, was dead. That form, the most 
rich in energy and coloring of any I had ever seen, bad faded 
from the earth. The circle of youthful associations had given 
way in the part that seemed the strongest. What I now 
learned of the story of this life, and what was by myself re- 
membered, may be bound together in this slight sketch. 

At the boarding school to which I was too early sent, a fond, 
a proud, and timid child, I saw among the ranks of the gay 
and graceful, bright or earnest girls, only one who interested 
my fancy or touched my young heart ; and this was Mariana. 
She was, on the father's side, of Spanish Creole blood, but had 
been sent to the Atlantic coast, to receive a school education 
under the care of her aunt, Mrs. Z. 

This lady had kept her mostly at home with herself, and 
Mariana had gone from her house to a day school ; but the 
aunt being absent for a time in Europe, she had now been 
unfortunately committed for some time to the mercies of a 
boarding school. 

A strange bird she proved there — a lonely one, that could 
not make for itself a summer. At first, her schoolmates were 
captivated with her ways, her love of wild dances and sudden 

[* It is well known that in this sketch my sister gives an account of an 
incident in the history of her own school-girl life. I need scarcely say that 
only so far as this incident is concerned is the story of Mariana in any 
sense autobiographical. — Ed.] 

(258) 



MARIANA. 259 

song, her freaks of passion and of wit She was always new, 
always surprising, and, for a time, charming. 

But, after a while, they tired of her. She could never be 
depended on to join in their plans, yet she expected them to 
follow out hers with their whole strength. She was very lov- 
ing, even infatuated in her own affections, and exacted from 
those who had professed any love for her, the devotion she 
was willing to bestow. 

Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character; 
a love of solitude, which made her at times wish to retire 
entirely; and at these times she would expect to be thoroughly 
understood, and let alone, yet to be welcomed back when she 
returned. She did not thwart others in their humors, but she 
never doubted of great indulgence from them. 

Some singular ways she had, which, when new, charmed, 
but, after acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had 
by nature the same habit and power of excitement that is 
described in the spinning dervishes of the East. Like them, 
she would spin until all around her were giddy, while her own 
brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited to great action. 
Pausing, she would declaim verse of others or her own ; perform 
many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed 
to act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimu- 
lating her to convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to 
melt him to tears. When her power began to languish, she 
would spin again till fired to recommence her singular drama, 
into which she wove figures from the scenes of her earlier 
childhood, her companions, and the dignitaries she sometimes 
saw, with fantasies unknown to life, unknown to heaven or 
earth. 

This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. 
It oftenest came on in the evening, and spoiled her sleep. She 
would wake in the night, and cheat her restlessness by inven- 
tions that teased, while they sometimes diverted her com- 
panions. 



260 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

She was also a sleep-walker ; and this one trait of her ease 
did somewhat alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed 
the same profound stupidity, as to this peculiar being, usual in 
the overseers of the young. They consulted a physician, who 
said she would outgrow it, and prescribed a milk diet. 

Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated 
nature was constantly increased by the restraints and narrow 
routine of the boarding school. She was always devising 
means to break in upon it. She had a taste, which would 
have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had not felt some 
awe of her, from a touch of genius and power, that never left 
her, for costume and fancy dresses ; always some sash twisted 
about her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement 
of her hair and dress ; so that the methodical preceptress dared 
not let her go out without a careful scrutiny and remodelling, 
whose soberizing effects generally disappeared the moment 
she was in the free air. 

At last, a vent for her was found in private theatricals. 
Play followed play, and in these and the rehearsals she found 
entertainment congenial with her. The principal parts, as a 
matter of course, fell to her lot ; most of the good suggestions 
and arrangements came from her, and for a time she ruled 
masterly and shone triumphant. 

During these performances the girls had heightened their 
natural bloom with artificial red ; this was delightful to them 
— it was something so out of the way. But Mariana, after 
the plays were over, kept her carmine saucer on the dressing 
table, and put on her blushes regularly as the morning. 

When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it 
because she thought it made her look prettier ; but, after a 
while, she became quite petulant about it — would make no 
reply to any joke, but merely kept on doing it. 

This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in 
general, more than vice or malignity. They talked it over 
among themselves, till they got wrought up to a desire of 



MARIANA. 261 

punishing, once for all, this sometimes amusing, but so often 
provoking nonconformist. 

Having obtained the leave of the mistress, they laid, with 
great glee, a plan one evening, which was to be carried into 
execution next day at dinner. 

Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to 
the meal-time ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, 
to be seated at a certain moment, to wait while each one was 
served at so large a table, and one where there was scarcely 
any conversation ; from day to day it became more heavy to 
her to sit there, or go there at all. Often as possible she 
excused herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and 
was hardly ever ready when the dinner bell rang. 

To-day it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the 
beautiful prospect. I have heard her say, afterwards, she had 
rarely in her life been so happy — and she was one with 
whom happiness was a still rapture. It was one of the most 
blessed summer days; the shadows of great white clouds 
empurpled the distant hills for a few moments only to leave 
them more golden ; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in 
the softest breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same 
hue of pure contentment was in the heart of Mariana. 

Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner bell. At 
first rose her usual thought, I will not, cannot go ; and then 
the must, which daily life can always enforce, even upon the 
butterflies and birds, came, and she walked reluctantly to her 
room. She merely changed her dress, and never thought of 
adding the artificial rose to her cheek. 

When she took her seat in the dining hall, and was asked 
if she would be helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person 
who asked her was deeply rouged, with a bright, glaring spot, 
perfectly round, in either cheek. She looked at the next — t lie 
same apparition ! She then slowly passed her eyes down the 
whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile 
distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once, 



262 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

she deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at 
every sehoolmate in turn ; every one had joined in the trick. 
The teachers strove to be grave, but she saw they enjoyed the 
joke. The servants could not suppress a titter. 

When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster 
Hall ; when the Methodist preacher walked through a line 
of men, each of whom greeted him with a brickbat or a rot- 
ten egg, — they had some preparation for the crisis, and it 
might not be very difficult to meet it with an impassive brow. 
Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the 
midst of a world which despised her, and triumphed in her 
disgrace. 

She had ruled like a queen in the midst of her compan- 
ions ; she had shed her animation through their lives, and 
loaded them with prodigal favors, nor once suspected that a 
powerful favorite might not be loved. Now, she felt that she 
had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those 
whose hearts she never had doubted. 

Yet the occasion found her equal to it ; for Mariana had 
the kind of spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the 
Roman matron truly say of her death wound, " It is not pain- 
ful, Poetus." She did not blench — she did not change coun- 
tenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent composure. 
She made remarks to those near her as if she had no eyes. 

The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the mo- 
ment they were freed from the restraints of the dining room, 
they all ran off, gayly calling, and sarcastically laughing, with 
backward glances, at Mariana, left alone. 

She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw 
herself on the floor in strong convulsions. These had some- 
times threatened her life, as a child, but of later years -lie had 
outgrown them. School hours came, and she was not there. 
A little girl, sent to her door, could get no answer. The 
teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was 
their penitence and that of her companions at the state in 



263 



which they found her. For some hours terrible anxiety was 
felt ; but at last, Nature, exhausted, relieved herself by a deep 
slumber. 

From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no 
reply to the expressions of sorrow from her companions, none 
to the grave and kind, but undiscerning comments of her 
teacher. She did not name the source of her anguish, and 
its poisoned dart sunk deeply in. It was this thought which 
stung her so. — " What, not one, not a single one, in the hour 
of trial, to take my part ! not one who refused to take part 
against me ! " Past words of love, and caresses little heeded 
at the time, rose to her memory, and gave fuel to her distem- 
pered thoughts. Beyond the sense of universal perfidy, of 
burning resentment, she could not get. And Mariana, born 
for love, now hated all the world. 

The change, however, which these feelings made in her 
conduct and appearance bore no such construction to the care- 
less observer. Her gay freaks were quite gone, her wildness, 
her invention. Her dress was uniform, her manner much 
subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie in her studies 
and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they, 
partly from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really 
liked her much better now that she did not oppress and puz- 
zle them, sought her continually. And here the black shadow 
comes upon her life — the only stain upon the history of 
Mariana. 

They talked to her as girls, having few topics, naturally 
do of one another. And the demon rose within her, and 
spontaneously, without design, generally without words of 
positive falsehood, she became a genius of discord among 
them. She fanned those flames of envy and jealousy which 
a wise, true word from a third person will often quench for- 
ever ; by a glance, or a seemingly light reply, she planted the 
seeds of dissension, till there was scarce a peaceful affection 
or sincere intimacy in the circle where she lived, and could 



264 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

not but rule, for she was one whose nature was to that of the 
others as fire to clay. 

It was at this time that I came to the school, and first saw 
Mariana. Me she charmed at once, for I was a sentimental 
child, who, in my early ill health, had been indulged in read- 
ing novels till I had no eyes for the common greens and 
browns of life. The heroine of one of these, " the Bandit's 
Bride," I immediately saw in Mariana. Surely the Bandit's 
Bride had just such hair, and such strange, lively ways, and 
such a sudden flash of the eye. The Bandit's Bride, too, 
was born to be " misunderstood" by all but her lover. Bat 
Mariana, I was determined, should be more fortunate ; for, 
until her lover appeared, I myself would be the wise and 
delicate being who could understand her. 

It was not, however, easy to approach her for this purpose. 
Did I offer to run and fetch her handkerchief, she was 
obliged to go to her room, and would rather do it herself. She 
did not like to have people turn over for her the leaves of the 
music book as she played. Did I approach my stool to her 
feet, she moved away, as if to give me room. The bunch of 
wild flowers which I timidly laid beside her plate was left 
there. 

After some weeks my desire to attract her notice really 
preyed upon me, and one day, meeting her alone in the entry, 
I fell upon my knees, and kissing her hand, cried, *• O Mari- 
ana, do let me love you, and try to love me a little." But my 
idol snatched away her hand, and, laughing more wildly than 
the Bandit's Bride was ever described to have done, ran into 
her room. After that day her manner to me was not only 
cold, but repulsive ; I felt myself scorned, and became very 
unhappy. 

Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one after- 
noon, it became obvious that something more than common was 
brewing. Dismay and mystery were written in many faces 
of the older girls ; much whispering was going on in corners. 



MARIANA. 265 

In the evening, after prayers, the principal bade us stay ; 
and, in a grave, sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to an- 
swer charges to be made against her. 

Mariana came forward, and leaned against the chimney- 
piece. Eight of the older girls came forward, and preferred 
against her charges — alas ! too well founded — of calumny and 
falsehood. 

My heart sank within me, as one after the other brought 
up their proofs, and I saw they were too strong to be resisted. 
I could not bear the thought of this second disgrace of my 
shining favorite. The first had been whispered to me, though 
the girls did not like to talk about it. I must confess, such is 
the charm of strength to softer natures, that neither of these 
crises could deprive Mariana of hers in my eyes. 

At first, she defended herself with self-possession and elo- 
quence. But when she found she could no more resist the 
truth, she suddenly threw herself down, dashing her head, 
with all her force, against the iron hearth, on which a fire was 
burning, and was taken up senseless. 

The affright of those present was great. Now that they 
had perhaps killed her, they reflected it would have been as 
well if they had taken warning from the former occasion, and 
approached very carefully a nature so capable of any ex- 
treme. After a while she revived, with a faint groan, amid 
the sobs of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed, 
and held her cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it 
from me to beg her pardon, and say it was impossible not to 
love her. She made no reply. 

Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be 
obtained from her, nor would she touch food ; but, when it 
was presented to her, or any one drew near for any cause, she 
merely turned away her head, and gave no sign. The teacher 
saw that some terrible nervous affection had fallen upon her 
— that she grew more and more feverish. She knew not 
what to do. 

23 



266 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Meanwhile, a new revolution had taken place in the mind 
of the passionate but nobly-tempered child. All these months 
nothing but the sense of injury had rankled in her heart. 
She had gone on in one mood, doing what the demon 
prompted, without scruple and without fear. 

But at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the 
bottom of her soul lay revealed to her eye. How black, how 
stained and sad ! Strange, strange that she had not seen be- 
fore the baseness and cruelty of falsehood, the loveliness of 
truth. Now, amid the wreck, uprose the moral nature which 
never before had attained the ascendant. " But," she thought, 
" too late sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and sin- 
defiled, I will not, cannot live. The mainspring of life is 
broken." 

And thus passed slowly by her hours in that black despair 
of which only youth is capable. In older years men suffer 
more dull pain, as each sorrow that comes drops its leaden 
weight into the past, and, similar features of character bring- 
ing similar results, draws up the heavy burden buried in those 
depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed, unwinking 
gaze, to contemplate grief, to hold it in the arms and to the 
heart, like a child which makes it wretched, yet is indubitably 
its own. 

The lady who took charge of this sad child had never 
well understood her before, but had always looked on her with 
great tenderness. And now love seemed — when all around 
were in greatest distress, fearing to call in medical aid, fearing 
to do without it — to teach her where the only balm was to 
be found that could have healed this wounded spirit. 

One night she came in, bringing a calming draught. Mari- 
ana was sitting, as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same 
robe they had put on her at first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon 
the whited wall. To the proffers and entreaties of her nurse 
she made no reply. 

The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even 
to observe it. 



MARIANA. 267 

The lady then said, " my child, do not despair ; do not 
think that one great fault can mar a whole life. Let me trust 
you, let me tell you the griefs of my sad life. I will tell to 
you, Mariana, what I never expected to impart to any one." 

And so she told her tale : it was one of pain, of shame, 
borne, not for herself, but for one near and dear as herself. 
Mariana knew the lady — knew the pride and reserve of her 
nature. She had often admired to see how the cheek, lovely, 
but no longer young, mantled with the deepest blush of youth, 
and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion : she 
had understood the proud sensibility of the character. She 
fixed her eyes on those now raised to hers, bright with fast- 
falling tears. She heard the story to the end, and then, with- 
out saying a word, stretched out her hand for the cup. 

She returned to life, but it was as one who has passed 
through the valley of death. The heart of stone was quite 
broken in her, the fiery life fallen from flame to coal. When 
her strength was a little restored, she had all her companions 
summoned, and said to them, u I deserved to die, but a gener- 
ous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy of it, 
nor ever betray the truth, or resent injury more. Can you 
forgive the past ? " 

And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, 
clasped in their arms the returning sister. They vied with 
one another in offices of humble love to the humbled one ; 
and let it be recorded as an instance of the pure honor of 
which young hearts are capable, that these facts, known to 
forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those 
walls. 

It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned 
home. She went thither a wonderfully instructed being, 
though in ways that those who had sent her forth to learn 
little dreamed of. 

Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal. 
Mariana could not resent, could not play false. The terrible 



268 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

crisis which she so early passed through probably prevented 
the world from hearing much of her. A wild fire was tamed 
in that hour of penitence at the boarding school such as has 
oftentimes wrapped court and camp in its destructive glow. 

But great were the perils she had yet to undergo, for she 
was one of those barks which easily get beyond soundings, 
and ride not lightly on the plunging billow. 

Her return to her native climate seconded the effects of in- 
ward revolutions. The cool airs of the north had exasperated 
nerves too susceptible for their tension. Those of the south 
restored her to a more soft and indolent state. Energy gave 
place to feeling — turbulence to intensity of character. 

At this time, love w r as the natural guest ; and he came to 
her under a form that might have deluded one less ready for 
delusion. 

Sylvain was a person well proportioned to her lot in years, 
family, and fortune. His personal beauty was not great, but 
of a noble dscription. Repose marked his slow gesture, and 
the steady gaze of his large brown eye ; but it was a repose 
that would give way to a blaze of energy, when the occasion 
called. In his stature, expression, and heavy coloring, he 
might not unfitly be represented by the great magnolias that 
inhabit the forests of that climate. His voice, like every 
thing about him, was rich and soft, rather than sweet or 
delicate. 

Mariana no sooner knew him than she loved ; and her love, 
lovely as she was, soon excited his. But 0, it is a curse to 
woman to love first, or most ! In so doing she reverses the 
natural relations; and her heart can never, never be satisfied 
with what ensues. 

Mariana loved first, and loved most, for she had most force 
and variety to love with. Sylvain seemed, at first, to take 
her to himself, as the deep southern night might some fair 
star ; but it proved not so. 

Mariana was a very intellectual being, and she nee led com- 



MARIANA. 269 

panionship. This she could only have with Sylvain, in the 
paths of passion and action. Thoughts he had none, and 
little delicacy of sentiment. The gifts she loved to prepare 
of such for him he took with a sweet but indolent smile ; he 
held them lightly, and soon they fell from his grasp. He 
loved to have her near him, to feel the glow and fragrance of 
her nature, but cared not to explore the little secret paths 
whence that fragrance was collected. 

Mariana knew not this for a long time. Loving so much, 
she imagined all the rest ; and, where she felt a blank, always 
hoped that further communion would fill it up. When she 
found this could never be, — that there was absolutely a 
whole province of her being to which nothing in his answered, 
— she was too deeply in love to leave him. Often, after passing 
hours together beneath the southern moon, when, amid the 
sweet intoxication of mutual love, she still felt the desolation 
of solitude, and a repression of her finer powers, she had 
asked herself, Can I give him up ? But the heart always 
passionately answered, No ! I may be wretched with him, but 
I cannot live without him. 

And the last miserable feeling of these conflicts was, that 
if the lover — soon to be the bosom friend — could have 
dreamed of these conflicts, he would have laughed, or else 
been angry, even enough to give her up. 

Ah, weakness of the strong ! of those strong only where 
strength is weakness ! Like others, she had the decisions of 
life to make before she had light by which to make them. 
Let none condemn her. Those who have not erred as fatally 
should thank the guardian angel who gave them more time to 
prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at 
arm's length to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capa- 
ble of highest Eros, gave it to one who knew love only as a 
flower or plaything, and bound her heartstrings to one who 
parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit leaves the bough. The 
sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for the one 
23* 



270 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

great mistake with their children, with the world. This was 
not possible to Mariana. A few months of domestic life 
she still was almost happy. But Sylvain then grew tired. 
He wanted business and the world : of these she had no 
knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the 
head of his house; she to make her heart his home. No 
compromise was possible between natures of such unequal 
poise, and which had met only on one or two points. Through 
all its stages she 

"felt 

The agonizing sense 
Of seeing love from passion melt 

Into indifference ; 
The fearful shame, that, day by day, 

Burns onward, still to burn, 
To have thrown her precious heart away, 

And met this black return," 

till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one 
downright blow on the heart. That is not the way such cases 
proceed. I cannot detail all the symptoms, for I was not 
there to watch them, and aunt Z., who described them, was 
neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I have shown 
myself in the school-day passages ; but, generally, they were 
as follows. 

Sylvain wanted to go into the world, or let it into his house. 
Mariana consented ; but, with an unsatisfied heart, and no 
lightness of character, she played her part ill there. The sort 
of talent and facility she had displayed in early days were 
not the least like what is called out in the social world by the 
desire to please and to shine. Her excitement had been 
muse-like — that of the improvisatrice, whose kindling fancy 
seeks to create an atmosphere round it, and makes the chain 
through which to set free its electric sparks. That had been 
a time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became 



MARIANA. 271 

more tender and concentrated, strong affection or a pure 
enthusiasm might still have called out beautiful talents in her. 
But in the first she was utterly disappointed. The second 
was not roused within her mind. She did not expand into 
various life, and remained unequal ; sometimes too passive, 
sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with 
what occupied those around her to come on the same level 
with them and embellish their hours. 

Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, com- 
paring her with the careless shining dames of society, wondered 
why he had found her so charming in solitude. 

At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted 
to open her heart, to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was 
so conscious of secret riches within herself, that sometimes it 
seemed, could she but reveal a glimpse of them to the eye of 
Sylvain, he would be attracted near her again, and take a 
path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in these 
intervals, wanted an indolent repose. His home was his 
castle. He wanted no scenes too exciting there. Light 
jousts and plays were well enough, but no grave encounters. 
He liked to lounge, to sing, to read, to sleep. In fine, Sylvain 
became the kind but preoccupied husband, Mariana the 
solitary and wretched wife. He was off, continually, with his 
male companions, on excursions or affairs of pleasure. At 
home Mariana found that neither her books nor music would 
console her. 

She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle 
to so dull a fiend as despair. She looked into other hearts, 
seeking whether she could there find such home as an orphan 
asylum may afford. This she did rather because the chance 
came to her, and it seemed unfit not to seize the proffered 
plank, than in hope ; for she was not one to double her stakes, 
but rather with Cassandra power to discern early the sure 
course of the game. And Cassandra whispered that she was 
one of those 

" Whom men love not, but yet regret ; " 



272 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

and so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a 
different form, it happened betwixt her and these companions. 
She could not be content to receive them quietly, but was 
stimulated to throw herself too much into the tie, into the 
hour, till she filled it too full for them. Like Fortunio, who 
sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire of cinna- 
mon, not knowing that its perfume would be too strong for 
their endurance, so did Mariana. What she wanted to tell 
they did not wish to hear ; a little had pleased, so much over- 
powered, and they preferred the free air of the street, even, 
to the cinnamon perfume of her palace. 

However, this did not signify ; had they staid, it w^ould not 
have availed her. It was a nobler road, a higher aim, she 
needed now ; this did not become clear to her. 

She lost her appetite, she fell sick, had fever. Sylvain was 
alarmed, nursed her tenderly; she grew better. Then his 
care ceased ; he saw not the mind's disease, but left her to rise 
into health, and recover the tone of her spirits, as she might. 
More solitary than ever, she tried to raise herself; but she 
knew not yet enough. The weight laid upon her young life 
was a little too heavy for it. One long day she passed alone, 
and the thoughts and presages came too thick for her strength. 
She knew not what to do with them, relapsed into fever, and 
died. 

Notwithstanding this weakness, I must ever think of her as 
a fine sample of womanhood, born to shed light and life on 
some palace home. Had she known more of God and the 
universe, she would not have given way where so many have 
conquered. But peace be with her; she now, perhaps, has 
entered into a larger freedom, which is knowledge. With her 
died a great interest in life to me. Since her I have never 
seen a Bandit's Bride. She, indeed, turned out to be only a 
merchant's. Sylvain is married again to a fair and laughing 
girl, who will not die, probably, till their marriage grows a 
" golden marriage." 



MARIANA. 273 

Aunt Z. had with her some papers of Mariana's, which 
faintly shadow forth the thoughts that engaged her in the last 
days. One of these seems to have been written when some 
faint gleam had been thrown across the path only to make 
its darkness more visible. It seems to have been suggested 
by remembrance of the beautiful ballad, Helen of Kirconnel 
Lee, which once she loved to recite, and in tones that would 
not have sent a chill to the heart from which it came. 

" Death 
Opens her sweet white arms, and whispers, Peace ; 
Come, say thy sorrows in this bosom ! This 
"Will never close against thee, and my heart, 
Though cold, cannot be colder much than man's." 

DISAPPOINTMENT. 

"I wish I were where Helen lies." 

A lover in the times of old, 
Thus vents his grief in lonely sighs, 

And hot tears from a bosom cold. 

But, mourner for thy martyred love, 

Couldst thou but know what hearts must feel, 

"Where no sw r eet recollections move, 
"Whose tears a desert fount reveal ! 

When " in thy arms bird Helen fell," 
She died, sad man, she died for thee ; 

Nor could the films of death dispel 
Her loving eye's sweet radiancy. 

Thou wert beloved, and she had loved, 
Till death alone the whole could tell ; 

Death every shade of doubt removed, 
And steeped the star in its cold well. 



274 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

On some fond breast the parting soul 
Relies — earth lias no more to give ; 

"Who wholly loves has known the whole ; 
The wholly loved doth truly live. 

But some, sad outcasts from this prize, 
Do wither to a lonely grave ; 

All hearts their hidden love despise, 
And leave them to the whelming wave. 

They heart to heart have never pressed, 
Nor hands in holy pledge have given, 

By father's love were ne'er caressed, 
Nor in a mother's eye saw heaven. 

A flowerless and fruitless tree, 

A dried-up stream, a mateless bird, 

They live, yet never living be, 

They die, their music all unheard. 

I wish I were where Helen lies, 
For there I could not be alone ; 

But now, when this dull body dies, 
The spirit still will make its moan. 

Love passed me by, nor touched my brow ; 

Life would not yield one perfect boon ; 
And all too late it calls me now — 

O, all too late, and all too soon. 

If thou couldst the dark riddle read 

Which leaves this dart within my breast, 

Then might I think thou lov'st indeed, 
Then were the whole to thee confest. 



275 



Father, they will not take me home ; 

To the poor child no heart is free ; 
In sleet and snow all night I roam ; 

Father, was this decreed by thee ? 

I will not try another door, 

To seek what I have never found ; 

Now, till the very last is o'er, 

Upon the earth I'll wander round. 

I will not hear the treacherous call 
That bids me stay and rest a while, 

For I have found that, one and all, 
They seek me for a prey and spoil. 

They are not bad ; I know it well ; 

I know they know not what they do; 
They are the tools of the dread spell 

Which the lost lover must pursue. 

In temples sometimes she may rest, 
In lonely groves, away from men, 

There bend the head, by heats distressed, 
Nor be by blows awoke again. 

Nature is kind, and God is kind ; 

And, if she had not had a heart, 
Only that great discerning mind, 

She might have acted well her part. 

But this thirst, that nought can fill, 
Save those unfounden waters free ! 

The angel of my life must still 
And soothe me in eternity ! 



276 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like 
Mariana should have found reason to write thus. To a man 
of equal power, equal sincerity, no more! — many resources 
would have presented themselves. He would not have needed 
to seek, he would have been called by life, and not permitted 
to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such 
women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some 
man of sufficiently great soul to prize them. 

Yan Artevelde's Elena, though in her individual nature 
unlike my Mariana, is like her in a mind whose large im- 
pulses are disproportioned to the persons and occasions she 
meets, and which carry her beyond those reserves which mark 
the appointed lot of woman. But, when she met Van Arte- 
velde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without 
regard to the stains and errors of its past history ; great 
enough to receive her entirely, and make a new life for her ; 
man enough to be a lover ! But as such men come not so 
often as once an age, their presence should not be absolutely 
needed to sustain life. 



SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS. 
Meditation First. 

"And Jesus, answering, said unto them, Have faith in God." — Mark 
xi. 22. 

O, direction most difficult to follow ! O, counsel most 
mighty of import ! Beauteous harmony to the purified soul ! 
Mysterious, confounding as an incantation to those yet grop- 
ing and staggering amid the night, the fog, the chaos of their 
own inventions ! 

Yes, this is indeed the beginning and the end of all knowl- 
edge and virtue ; the way and the goal ; the enigma and its 
solution. The soul cannot prove to herself the existence of a 
God ; she cannot prove her own immortality ; she cannot 
prove the beauty of virtue, or the deformity of vice ; her own 
consciousness, the first ground of this belief, cannot be com- 
passed by the reason, that inferior faculty which the Deity 
gave for practical, temporal purposes only. This conscious- 
ness is divine ; it is part of the Deity ; through this alone we 
sympathize with the imperishable, the infinite, the nature of 
things. Were reason commensurate with this part of our 
intellectual life, what should we do with the things of time ? 
The leaves and buds of earth would wither beneath the sun 
of our intelligence ; its crags and precipices would be levelled 
before the mighty torrent of our will ; all its dross would crum- 
ble to ashes under the fire of our philosophy. 

God willed it otherwise ; why, who can guess ? Why this 
planet, with its tormenting limitations of space and time, was 
24 " (277) 



27 8 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

ever created, — why the soul was cased in this clogging, stifling 
integument, (which, while it conveys to the soul, in a round- 
about way, knowledge which she might obviously acquire 
much better without its aid, tempts constantly to vice and 
indolence, suggesting sordid wants, and hampering or hinder- 
ing thought,) — I pretend not to say. Let others toil to stifle 
sad distrust a thousand ways. Let them satisfy themselves 
by reasonings on the nature, of free agency ; let them imagine 
it was impossible men should be purified to angels, except by 
resisting the temptations of guilt and crime ; let them be 
reasonably content to feel that 

" Faith conquers in no easy war ; 

By toil alone the prize is won ; 
The grape dissolves not in the cup — 

Wine from the crushing press must run ; 
And would a spirit heavenward go, 
A heart must break in death below." 

Why an omnipotent Deity should permit evil, either as 
necessary to produce good, or incident to laws framed for its 
production, must remain a mystery to me. True, ice cannot 
conceive how the world could have been ordered differently, 
and because we, — beings half of clay ; beings bred amid, and 
nurtured upon imperfection and decay ; beings who must 
not only sleep and eat, but pass the greater part of their tem- 
poral day in procuring the means to do so, — because we, 
creatures so limited and blind, so weak of thought and dull 
of hearing, cannot conceive how evil could have been dis- 
pensed with, those among us who are styled wise and learned 
have thought fit to assume that the Infinite, the Omnipotent, 
could not have found a way! ''Could not," "evil must be 
incident " — terms invented to express the thoughts or deeds 
of the children of dust. Shall they be applied to the Omnipo- 
tent ? Is a confidence in the goodness of God more trying 
to faith, than the belief that a God exists, to whom these 
words, transcending our powers of conception, apply ? O, no, 



SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS. 279 

no! "Have faith in God!" Strive to expand thy soul to 
the feeling of wisdom, of beauty, of goodness ; live, and act 
as if these were the necessary elements of things ; " live for 
thy faith, and thou shalt behold it living." In another world 
God will repay thy trust, and " reveal to thee the first 
causes of things which Leibnitz could not," as the queen of 
Prussia said, when she was dying. Socrates has declared that 
the belief in the soul's immortality is so delightful, so elevat- 
ing, so purifying, that even were it not the truth, " we should 
daily strive to enchant ourselves with it." And thus with 
faith in wisdom and goodness, — that is to say, in God, — the 
earthquake-defying, rock-foundation of our hopes is laid ; the 
sun-greeting dome which crowns the most superb palace of 
our knowledge is builded. A noble and accomplished man, 
of a later day, has said, "To credit ordinary and visible 
objects is not faith, but persuasion. I bless myself, and am 
thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never 
saw Christ, nor his disciples ; then had my faith been thrust 
upon me, nor could I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced 
upon those who believe yet saw not." 

I cannot speak thus proudly and heartily. I find the world 
of sense strong enough against the intellectual and celestial 
world. It is easy to believe in our passionless moments, or 
in those when earth would seem too dark without the guiding 
star of faith ; but to live in faith, not sometimes to feel, but 
always to have it, is difficult. Were faith ever w r ith us, how 
steady would be our energy, how equal our ambition, how 
calmly bright our hopes ! The darts of envy would be blunted, 
the cup of disappointment lose its bitterness, the impassioned 
eagerness of the heart be stilled, tears would fall like holy dew, 
and blossoms fragrant with celestial May ensue. 

But the prayer of most of us must be, " Lord, we believe 
— help thou our unbelief ! " These are to me the most sig- 
nificant words of Holy Writ. I will to believe ; O, guide, 
support, strengthen, and soothe me to do so ! Lord, grant me 



280 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

to believe firmly, and to act nobly. Let me not be tempted to 
waste my time, and weaken my powers, by attempts to mmue 
on feeble pinions " where angels bashful look." In faith let 
me interpret the universe ! 



Meditation Second. 

" Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath 
hedged in ?" — Job iii. 23. 

This pathetic inquiry rises from all parts of the globe, from 
millions of human souls, to that heaven from whence the light 
proceeds. From the young, full of eager aspirations after 
virtue and glory ; with the glance of the falcon to descry the 
high-placed aim, — but ah! the wing of the wren to reach it! 
The young enthusiast must often weep. His heart glows, his 
eye sparkles as he reads of the youthful triumphs of a Pom- 
pey, the sublime devotion of an Agis ; * he shuts the book, he 
looks around him for a theatre whereon to do likewise — 
petty pursuits, mean feelings, and trifling pleasures meet his 
eye ; the cold breeze of selfishness has nipped every flower ; 
the dull glow of prosaic life overpowers the beauties of the 
landscape. He plunges into the unloved pursuit, or some de- 
spised amusement, to soothe that day's impatience, and wakes 
on the morrow, crying, " I have lost a day ; and where, where 
shall I now turn my steps to find the destined path?" The 
gilded image of some petty victory holds forth a talisman 
which seems to promise him sure tokens. He rushes for- 
ward ; the swords of foes and rivals bar the way; the 
ground trembles and gives way beneath his feel : rapid Btreams, 
unseen at a distance, roll between him and the object of his 
pursuit; faint, giddy and exhausted by the loss of his beat 
blood, he reaches the goal, seizes the talisman, his eyes de- 

[* Agis, king of Sparta, the fourth of that name. " One of the most 
beautiful characters of antiquity." — Ed.] 



SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS. 281 

Your the inscription — alas ! the characters are unknown to 
him. He looks back for some friend who might aid him, — 
his friends are whelmed beneath the torrent, or have turned 
back disheartened. He must struggle onward alone and igno- 
rant as before ; yet in his wishes there is light. 

Another is attracted by a lovely phantom ; with airy 
step she precedes him, holding, as he thinks, in her upward- 
pointing hand the faithful needle which might point him to the 
pole-star of his wishes. Unwearied he follows, imploring her 
in most moving terms to pause but a moment and let him 
take her hand. Heedless she flits onward to some hopeless 
desert, where she pauses only to turn to her unfortunate cap- 
tive the malicious face of a very Morgana. 

The old, — their sighs are deeper still ! They have 
wandered far, toiled much; the true light is now shown them. 
Ah, why was it reflected so falsely through " life's many-col- 
ored dome of painted glass" upon their youthful, anxious 
gaze? And now the path they came by is hedged in by new 
circumstances against the feet of others, and its devious 
course vainly mapped in their memories ; should the light of 
their example lead others into the same track, these unlucky 
followers will vainly seek an issue. They attempt to unroll 
their charts for the use of their children, and their children's 
children. They feed the dark lantern of wisdom with the oil 
of experience, and hold it aloft over the declivity up which 
these youth are blundering, in vain ; some fall, misled by the 
flickering light ; others seek by-paths, along which they hope 
to be guided by suns or moons of their own. All meet at 
last, only to bemoan or sneer together. How many strive 
with feverish zeal to paint on the clouds of outward life the 
hues of their own souls; what do not these suffer? What 
baffling, — what change in the atmosphere on which they de- 
pend, — yet not in vain ! Something they realize, something 
they grasp, something (O, how unlike the theme of their 
hope !) they have created. A transient glow, a deceitful thrill, 
24* 



282 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

— these be the blisses of mortals. Yet have these given 
birth to noble deeds, and thoughts worthy to be recorded by 
the pens of angels on the tablets of immortality. 

And this, O man! is thy only solace in those paroxysms 
of despair which must result to the yet eager heart from the 
vast disproportion between our perceptions and our exhibition 
of those perceptions. Seize on all the twigs that may help 
thee in thine ascent, though the thorns upon them rend thee. 
Toil ceaselessly towards the Source of light, and remember th:it 
he who thus eloquently lamented found that, although far worse 
than his dark presentiments had pictured came upon him, 
though vainly he feared and trembled, and there was no safety 
for him, yet his sighings came before his meat, and, happy in 
their recollection, he found at last that danger and imprison- 
ment are but for a season, and that God is good, as he is 
great. 



APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED 
FEMALE CONVICTS. 

The ladies of the Prison Association have been from time 
to time engaged in the endeavor to procure funds for establish- 
ing this asylum.* They have met, thus far, with little suc- 
cess ; but touched by the position of several women, who, on 
receiving their discharge, were anxiously waiting in hope 
there would be means provided to save them from return to 
their former suffering and polluted life, they have taken a 
house, and begun their good work, in faith that Heaven must 
take heed that such an enterprise may not fail, and touch the 
hearts of men to aid it. 

They have taken a house, and secured the superintendence 
of an excellent matron. There are already six women under 
her care. But this house is unprovided with furniture, or the 
means of securing food for body and mind to these unfortu- 
nates, during the brief novitiate which gives them so much to 
learn and unlearn. 

The object is to lend a helping hand to the many who show 
a desire of reformation, but have hitherto been inevitably re- 
pelled into infamy by the lack of friends to find them honest 
employment, and a temporary refuge till it can be procured. 
Efforts will be made to instruct them how to break up bad 
habits, and begin a healthy course for body and mind. 

The house has in it scarcely any thing. It is a true Laza- 
rus establishment, asking for the crumbs that fall from the 
rich man's table. Old furniture would be acceptable, clothes, 
books that are no longer needed by their owners. 



[* In New York. —Ed.] 



(283) 



284 LIFE WITHOUT AXD LIFE WITHIN. 

This statement we make in appealing to the poor, though 
they are, usually, the most generous. Not that they arc, 
originally, better than the rich, but circumstances have fitted 
them to appreciate the misfortunes, the trials, the wrongs that 
beset those a little lower than themselves. But we have soon 
too many instances where those who were educated in luxury 
would cast aside sloth and selfishness with eagerness when 
once awakened to better things, not to hope in appealing to 
the rich also. 

And to all we appeal : to the poor, who will know how to 
sympathize with those who are not only poor but degraded, 
diseased, likely to be hurried onward to a shameful, hopeless 
death ; to the rich, to equalize the advantages of which they 
have received more than their share ; to men, to atone for 
wrongs inflicted by men on that " weaker sex," who should, 
they say, be soft, confiding, dependent on them for protection ; 
to women, to feel for those who have not been guarded either 
by social influence or inward strength from that first mistake 
which the opinion of the world makes irrevocable for women 
alone.. Since their danger is so great, their fall so remediloss, 
let mercies be multiplied when there is a chance of that par- 
tial restoration which society at present permits. 

In New York we have come little into contact with that 
class of society which has a surplus of leisure at commaml ; 
but in other cities we have found in their ranks many — some 
men, more women — who wanted only a decided object and 
clear light to fill the noble office of disinterested educators 
and guardians to their less fortunate fellows. It has been our 
happiness, in not a few instances, by merely apprising such 
persons of what was to be done, to rouse that generous spirit 
which relieved them from ennui and a gradual ossification of 
the whole system, and transferred them into a thoughtful, 
sympathetic, and beneficent existence. Such, no doubt, are 
near us here, if we could but know it. A uoet writes thus 
of the cities : — 



ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE CONVICTS. 285 

Cities of proud hotels, 

Houses of rich and great, 
A stack of smoking chimneys, 

A roof of frozen slate ! 
It cannot conquer folly, 

Time, and space, conquering steam, 
And the light, outspeeding telegraph, 

Bears nothing on its beam. 

The politics are base, 

The letters do not cheer, 
And 'tis far in the deeps of history, 

The voice that speaketh clear. 
Trade and the streets insnare us, 

Our bodies are weak and worn, 
"We plot and corrupt each other, 

And we despoil the unborn. 

Yet there in the parlor sits 

Some figure of noble guise, 
Our angel in a stranger's form, 

Or woman's pleading eyes. 
Or only a flashing sunbeam 

In at the window pane, 
Or music pours on mortals 

Its beautiful disdain. 

These " pleading eyes," these " angels in strangers' forms," 
we meet, or seem to meet, as we pass through the thorough- 
fares of this great city. We do not know their names or 
homes. We cannot go to those still and sheltered abodes and 
tell them the tales that would be sure to awaken the heart to 
a deep and active interest in this matter. But should these 
words meet their eyes, we would say, " Have you entertained 
your leisure hours with the Mysteries of Paris, or the 



286 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

pathetic story of Violet "Woodville ? " Then you have some 
idea how innocence, worthy of the brightest planet, may be 
betrayed by want, or by the most generous tenderness; how 
the energies of a noble reformation may lie hidden beneath 
the ashes of a long burning, as in the case of " La Louve." 
You must have felt that yourselves are not better, only more 
protected children of God than these. Do you want to link 
these fictions, which have made you weep, with facts around 
you where your pity might be of use? Go to the Peniten- 
tiary at Blackwell's Island. You may be repelled by seeing 
those who are in health, while at work together, keeping up 
one another's careless spirit and effrontery by bad association. 
But see them in the Hospital, — where the worn features of 
the sick show the sad ruins of past loveliness, past gentleness. 
See in the eyes of the nurses the woman's spirit still, so 
kindly, so inspiring. See those little girls huddled in a 
corner, their neglected dress and hair contrasting with some 
ribbon of cherished finery held fast in a childish hand. Think 
what " sweet seventeen " was to you, and what it is to them, 
and see if you do not wish to aid in any enterprise that gives 
them a chance of better days. We assume no higher claim 
for this enterprise. The dreadful social malady which creates 
the need of it, is one that imperatively demands deep-search- 
ing, preventive measures ; it is beyond cure. But, here and 
there, some precious soul may be saved from unwilling sin, 
unutterable woe. Is not the hope to save here and there one 
worthy of great and persistent sacrifice ? 



THE RICH MAN. 



An Ideal Sketch. 



In my walks through this city, the sight of spacious and 
expensive dwelling-houses now in process of building, has 
called up the following reverie. 

All benevolent persons, whether deeply-thinking on, or 
deeply-feeling, the woes, difficulties, and dangers of our pres- 
ent social system, are agreed that either great improvements 
are needed, or a thorough reform. 

Those who desire the latter include the majority of think- 
ers. And we ourselves, both from personal observation and 
the testimony of others, are convinced that a radical reform is 
needed ; not a reform that rejects the instruction of the past, 
or asserts that God and man have made mistakes till now. 
We believe that all past developments have taken place 
under natural and necessary laws, and that the Paternal 
Spirit has at no period forgotten his children, but granted to 
all generations and all ages their chances of good to balance 
inevitable ills. We prize the past ; we recognize it as our 
parent, our nurse, and our teacher ; and we know that for a 
time the new wine required the old bottles, to prevent its 
being spilled upon the ground. 

Still we feel that the time 'is come which not only permits, 
but demands, a wider statement and a nobler action. The 
aspect of society presents mighty problems, which must be 
solved by the soul of man " divinely -intending " itself to the 
task, or all will become worse instead of better, and ere long 
the social fabric totter to decay. 

(287) 



288 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Yet while the new measures are ripening, and the new 
men educating, there is still room on the old platform for 
some worthy action. It is possible for a man of piety, reso- 
lution, and good sense, to lead a life which, if not expansive, 
generous, graceful, and pure from suspicion and contempt, is 
yet not entirely unworthy of his position as the child of God, 
and ruler of a planet. 

Let us take, then, some men just where they find them- 
selves, in a mixed state of society, where, in quantity, we are 
free to say the bad preponderates, though the good, from its 
superior energy in quality, may finally redeem and efface its 
plague-spots. 

Our society is ostensibly under the rule of the precepts of 
Jesus. We will then suppose a youth sufficiently imbued 
with these, to understand what is conveyed under the para- 
bles of the unjust steward, and the prodigal son, as well as 
the denunciations of the opulent Jews. He understands that 
it is needful to preserve purity and teachableness, since of 
those most like little children is the kingdom of heaven ; 
mercy for the sinner, since there is peculiar joy in heaven at 
the salvation of such ; perpetual care for the unfortunate, 
since only to the just steward shall his possessions be par- 
doned. Imbued with such love, the young man joins the 
active, — we will say, in choosing an instance, — joins the 
commercial world. 

His views of his profession are not those which make of 
the many a herd, not superior, except in the far reach of 
their selfish interests, to the animals ; mere calculating, 
money-making machines. 

He sees in commerce a representation of most important 
interests, a grand school that may teach the heart and soul 
of the civilized world to a willing, thinking mind. He plays 
his part in the game, but not for himself alone ; he sees the 
interests of all mankind engaged with his, and remembers 
them while he furthers his own. His intellectual discern- 



THE RICH BfAK. 289 

rneni. do less than his moral, thus teaching the undesirable- 
ness of lying and stealing, he does not practise or connive at 
the falsities and meannesses so frequent among his fellows ; 
he suffers many turns of the wheel of fortune to pass unused, 
since he cannot avail himself of them and keep clean his 
hands. What he gains is bj superior assiduity, skill in com- 
bination and calculation, and quickness of sight. His gains 
are legitimate, so far as the present state of things permits 
any gain? to be. 

Nor is this honorable man denied his due rank in the most 
corrupt state of society. Here, happily, we draw from life, and 
speak of what we know. Honesty is, indeed, the best policy, 
only it is so in the long run, and therefore a policy which a 
selfish man has not faith and patience to pursue. The influ- 
ence of the honest man is in the end predominant, and the 
rogues who sneer because he will not shuffle the ctu*ds in their 
way, are forced to bow to it at last. 

But while thus conscientious and mentally-progressive, he 
does not forget to live. The sharp and care-worn faces, the 
joyless lives that throng the busy street, do not make him for- 
get his need of tender affections, of the practices of bounty 
and love. His family, his acquaintance, especially those who 
are struggling with the difficulties of life, are not obliged to 
wait till he has accumulated a certain sum. He is sunlight 
and dew to them now, day by day. No less do all in his 
employment prize and bless the just, the brotherly man. He 
dares not, would not, climb to power upon their necks. He 
requites their toil handsomely, always ; if his success be unu- 
sual, they share the benefit. Their comfort is cared for in all 
the arrangements for their work. He takes care, too, to be 
personally acquainted with those he employs, regarding them, 
not as mere tools of his purpose, but as human beings also ; 
he keeps them in his eye, and if it be in his power to supply 
their need of consolation, instruction, or even pleasure, they 
find they have a friend. 
25 



290 LIFE WITHOUT AND LITE WITHIN'. 

"Nonsense!" exclaims our sharp-eyed, thin-lipped antag- 
onist. "Such a man would never get rich, — or even get 
along ! " 

You are mistaken, Mr. Stockjobber. Thus far many lines 
of our sketch are drawn from real life ; though for the second 
part, which follows, we want, as yet, a worthy model. 

We must imagine, then, our ideal merchant to have grown 
rich in some forty years of toil passed in the way we have 
indicated. His hair is touched with white, but his form is 
vigorous yet. Neither gourmandise nor the fever of gain has 
destroyed his complexion, quenched the light of his eye, or 
substituted sneers for smiles. He is an upright, strong, saga- 
cious, generous-looking man; and if his movements be abrupt, 
and his language concise, somewhat beyond the standard of 
beauty, he is still the gentleman ; mercantile, but a mercan- 
tile nobleman. 

Our nation is not silly in striving for an aristocracy. Hu- 
manity longs for its upper classes. But the silliness < • 
in making them out of clothes, equipage, and a servile imita- 
tion of foreign manners, instead of the genuine elegance and 
distinction that can only be produced by genuine culture 
Shame upon the stupidity which, when all circumstances 
leave us free for the introduction of a real aristocracy such 
as the world never saw, bases its pretensions on. or make- its 
bow to the 'footman behind, the coach, instead of the person 
within it. 

But our merchant shall be a real nobleman, whose noble 
manners spring from a noble mind, whose fashions from a 
sincere, intelligent love of the beautiful. 

We will also indulge the fancy of giving him a wife and 
children worthy of himself. Having lived in sympathy with 
him, they have acquired no taste for luxury ; they do not 
think that the best use for wealth and power is in .-elf-indul- 
gence, but, on the contrary, that "it is more blessed to give 
than to receive." 



THE RICH MAX. 291 

He is now having one of those fine houses built, and, as 
in other things, proceeds on a few simple principles. It is 
substantial, for he wishes to give no countenance to the paper 
buildings that correspond with other worthless paper currency 
of a credit system. It is thoroughly finished and furnished, 
for he has a conscience about his house, as about the neatness 
of his person. All must be of a piece. Harmony and a wise 
utility are consulted, without regard to show. Still, as a rich 
man, we allow him reception-rooms, lofty, large, adorned with 
good copies of ancient works of art, and fine specimens of 
modern. 

I admit, in this instance, the propriety of my nobleman 
often choosing by advice of friends, who may have had more 
leisure and opportunity to acquire a sure appreciation of merit 
in these walks. His character being simple, he will, no doubt, 
appreciate a great part of what is truly grand and beautiful. 
But also, from imperfect culture, he might often reject what 
in the end he would have found most valuable to himself and 
others. For he has not done learning, but only acquired the 
privilege of helping to open a domestic school, in which he 
will find himself a pupil as well as a master. So he may well 
make use, in furnishing himself with the school apparatus, of the 
best counsel. The same applies to making his library a good 
one. Only there must be no sham ; no pluming himself on 
possessions that represent his wealth, but the taste of others. 
Our nobleman is incapable of pretension, or the airs of con- 
noisseurship ; his object is to furnish a home with those testi- 
monies of a higher life in man, that may best aid to cultivate 
the same in himself and those assembled round him. 

He shall also have a fine garden and greenhouses. But 
the flowers shall not be used only to decorate his apartments, 
or the hair of his daughters, but shall often bless, by their soft 
and exquisite eloquence, the poor invalid, or others whose 
sorrowful hearts find in their society a consolation and a hope 
which nothing else bestows. For flowers, the highest expres- 



292 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

sion of the bounty of nature, declare that for all men, not 
merely labor, or luxury, but gentle, buoyant, ever-energetic 
joy, was intended, and bid us hope that we shall not forever 
be kept back from our inheritance. 

All the persons who have aided in building up this domestic 
temple, from the artist who painted the ceilings to the poorest 
hodman, shall be well paid and cared for during its erection ; for 
it is a necessary part of the happiness of our nobleman, to feel 
that all concerned in creating his home are the happier for it. 

We have said nothing about the architecture of the house, 
and yet this is only for want of room. We do consider it 
one grand duty of every person able to build a good house, 
also to aim at building a beautiful one. We do not want im- 
itations of what was used in other ages, nations, and climates, 
but what is simple, noble, and in conformity with the wants 
of our own. Room enough, simplicity of design, and judi- 
cious adjustment of the parts to their uses and to the whole, 
are the first requisites ; the ornaments are merely the finish 
on these. We hope to see a good style of civic architecture 
long before any material improvement in the country edifices, 
for reasons that would be tedious to enumerate here. Suffice 
it to say that we are far more anxious to see an American 
architecture than an American literature ; for we are sure 
there is here already something individual to expr 

Well, suppose the house built and equipped with man and 
horse. You may be sure my nobleman gives his "hired 
help " good accommodations for their sleeping and waking 
hours, — baths, books, and some leisure to use them. Nay, I 
assure you — and this assurance also is drawn from life — that 
it is possible, even in our present social relations, for the man 
who does common justice, in these respects, to his fellows, and 
shows a friendly heart, that thoroughly feels service to be no 
degradation, but an honor, who believes 

" A man's a max for a' that ; " — 
" Honor in the king the wisdom of his service, 
Honor in the serf the fidelity of his service," — 



THE RICH MAN. 203 

to have around him those who do their work in serenity of 
mind, neither deceiving nor envying him whom circumstances 
have enabled to command their service. As to the carriage, 
that is used for the purpose of going to and fro in bad weather, 
or ill health, or haste, or for drives to enjoy the country. 
But my nobleman and his family are too well born and bred 
not to prefer employing their own feet when possible. And 
their carriage is much appropriated to the use of poor invalids, 
even among the abhorred class of poor relations, so that often 
they have not room in it for themselves, much less for flaunt- 
ing dames and lazy dandies. 

TTe need hardly add that, their attendants wear no liveries. 
They are aware that, in a society where none of the causes 
exist that justify this habit abroad, the practice would have no 
other result than to call up a sneer to the lips of the most 
complaisant "milor," when "Mrs. Higginbottom's carriage 
stops the way," with its tawdry, ill-fancied accompaniments. 
Will none of their " governors " tell our cits the iEsopian 
fable of the donkey that tried to imitate the "gambols of the 
little dog ? 

The wife of my nobleman is so well matched with him that 
she has no need to be the better half. She is his almoner, his 
counsellor, and the priestess who keeps burning on the do- 
mestic hearth a fire from the fuel he collects in his out-door 
work, whose genial heart and aspiring flame comfort and ani- 
mate all who come within its range. 

His children are his ministers, whose leisure and various 
qualifications enable them to carry out his good thoughts. 
They hold all that they possess — time, money, talents, acquire- 
ments — on the principle of stewardship. They wake up the 
seeds of virtue and genius in all the young persons of their 
acquaintance ; but the poorer classes are especially their care. 
Among them they seek for those who are threatened with dying 
— " mute, inglorious " Hampdens and Miltons — but for their 
scrutiny and care ; of these they become the teachers and pat- 
25* 



294 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

rons to the extent of their power. Such knowledge of the 
arts, sciences, and just principles of action as they have been 
favored with, they communicate, and thereby form novices 
worthy to fill up the ranks of the true American aristocracy. 

And the house — it is a large one; a simple family i 
not fill its chambers. Some of them are devoted to the use 
of men of genius, who need a serene home, free from care, 
while they pursue their labors for the good of the world. 
Thus, as in the palaces of the little princes of Italy in a bet- 
ter day, these chambers become hallowed by the nativities of 
great thoughts; and the horoscopes of the human births that 
may take place there, are likely to read the better for it. 
Suffering virtue sometimes finds herself taken home here, in- 
stead of being sent to the almshouse, or presented with half a 
dollar and a ticket for coal, and finds upon my nobleman's 
mattresses (for the wealth of Croesus would not lure him or 
his to sleep upon down) dreams of angelic protection which 
enable her to rise refreshed for the struggle of the morrow. 

The uses of hospitality are very little understood among 
us, so that we fear generally there is a small chance of enter- 
taining gods and angels unawares, as the Greeks and He- 
brews did in the generous time of hospitality, when every 
man had a claim on the roof of fellow-man. Xow, none is 
received to a bed and breakfast unless he come as " bearer of 
despatches" from His Excellency So-and-so. 

But let us not be supposed to advocate the system of all 
work and no play, or to delight exclusively in the pedagogic 
and Goody-Two-Shoes vein. Reader, if any such accompany 
me to this scene of my vision, cheer up ; I hear the sound of 
music in full band, and see the banquet prepared. Perhaps 
they are even dancing the polka and redowa in those airy, 
well-lighted rooms. In another they find in the acting of ex* 
tempore dramas, arrangement of tableaux, little concerts or 
recitations, intermingled with beautiful national or fancy 
dances, some portion of the enchanting, refining, and ennobling 



THE RICH 3IAX. 295 

influence of the arts. The finest engravings on all subjects 
attend such as like to employ themselves more quietly, while 
those who can find a companion or congenial group to con- 
verse with, find also plenty of recesses and still rooms, with 
softened light, provided for their pleasure. 

There is not on this side of the Atlantic — we dare our glove 
upon it — a more devout believer than ourselves in the worship 
of the Muses and Graces, both for itself, and its importance no 
less to the moral than to the intellectual life of a nation. 
Perhaps there is not one who has so deep a feeling, or so 
many suggestions ready, in the fulness of time, to be hazarded 
on the subject. 

But in order to such worship, what standard is there as to 
admission to the service ? Talents of gold, or Delphian tal- 
ents ? fashion or elegance ? " standing " or the power to move 
gracefully from one position to another ? 

Our nobleman did not hesitate ; the handle to his door bell 
was not of gold, but mother-of-pearl, pure and prismatic. 

If he did not go into the alleys to pick up the poor, they 
were not excluded, if qualified by intrinsic qualities to adorn 
the scene. Neither were wealth or fashion a cause of exclu- 
sion, more than of admission. All depended on the person ; 
yet he did not seek his guests among the slaves of fashion, for 
he knew that persons highly endowed rarely had patience 
with the frivolities of that class, but retired, and left it to be 
peopled mostly by weak and plebeian natures. Yet all de- 
pended on the individual. Was the person fair, noble, wise, 
brilliant, or even only youthfully innocent and gay, or vener- 
able in a good old age, he or she was welcome. Still, as sim- 
plicity of character and some qualification positively good, 
healthy, and natural, was requisite for admission, we must say 
the company w r as select. Our nobleman and his family had 
weeded their " circle " carefully, year by year. 

Some valued acquaintances they had made in ball-rooms 
and boudoirs, and kept ; but far more had been made through 



296 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

the daily wants of life, and shoemakers, seamstresses, and 
graziers mingled happily with artists and statesmen, to the 
benefit of both. (N. B. — None used the poisonou> weed, in 
or out of our domestic temple.) 

I cannot tell you what infinite good our nobleman and his 
family were doing by creation of this true social centre, where 
the legitimate aristocracy of the land assembled, not to be 
dazzled by expensive furniture, (our nobleman bought what 
was good in texture and beautiful in form, but not because it 
was expensive,) not to be feasted on rare wines and highly- 
seasoned dainties, though they found simple refreshments well 
prepared, as indeed it was a matter of duty and conscience 
in that house that the least office should be well fulfilled, but 
to enjoy the generous confluence of mind with mind and heart 
with heart, the pastimes that are not waste-times of taste and 
inventive fancy, the cordial union of beings from all points 
and places in noble human sympathy. New York was be- 
ginning to be truly American, or rather Columbian, and money 
stood for something in the records of history. It had brought 
opportunity to genius and aid to virtue. But just at this mo- 
ment, the jostling showed me that I had reached the corner 
of Wall Street. I looked earnestly at the omnibuses dischar- 
ging their eager freight, as if I hoped to see my merchant. 
" Perhaps he has gone to the post office to take out letters 
from his friends in Utopia," thought I. " Please give me a 
penny," screamed a half-starved ragged little street-sweep, 
and the fancied cradle of the American Utopia receded, or 
rather proceeded, fifty years, at least, into the future. 



THE POOR MAN. 



An Ideal Sketch. 



The foregoing sketch of the Rich Man, seems to require 
this companion-piece; and we shall make the attempt, though 
the subject is far more difficult than the former was. 

In the first place, we must state what we mean by a poor 
man, for it is a term of wide range in its relative applications. 
A painstaking artisan, trained to self-denial, and a strict adap- 
tation, not of his means to his wants, but of his wants to his 
means, finds himself rich and grateful, if some unexpected 
fortune enables him to give his wife a new gown, his children 
cheap holiday joys, and his starving neighbor a decent 
meal ; while George IV., when heir apparent to the throne 
of Great Britain, considered himself driven by the pressure 
of poverty to become a debtor, a beggar, a swindler, and, by 
the aid of perjury, the husband of two wives at the same time, 
neither of whom he treated well. Since poverty is made an 
excuse for such depravity in conduct, it would be well to mark 
the limits within which self-control and resistance to tempta- 
tion may be expected. 

When he of the olden time prayed, " Give me neither pov- 
erty nor riches," we presume he meant that proportion of 
means to the average wants of a human being which secures 
freedom from pecuniary cares, freedom of motion, and a mod- 
erate enjoyment of the common blessings offered by earth, 
air, water, the natural relations, and the subjects for thought 
which every day presents. We shall certainly not look above 

(297) 



298 LIFE WITHOUT WD LIFE WITHIN. 

this point for our poor man. A prince may be poor, if he 
has not mean- to relieve the Bufferings of his subjects, or 
secure to them needed benefits. Or he may make himself so, 
just as a well-paid laborer by drinking brings poverty to his 
roof. So may the prince, by the mental gin of horse-racing 
or gambling, grow a beggar. But we shall not consider these 
cases. 

Our subject will be taken between the medium we hare 
spoken of as answer to the wise man's prayer, and that desti- 
tution which we must style infamous, either to the individual 
or to the society whose vices have caused that stage of poverty, 
in which there is no certainty, and often no probability, of 
work or bread from day to day, — in which cleanliness and 
all the decencies of life are impossible, and the natural human 
feelings are turned to gall because the man finds himself on 
this earth in a far worse situation than the brute. In this 
stage there is no ideal, and from its abyss, if the unfortunates 
look up to Heaven, or the state of things as they ought to be, 
it is with suffocating gasps which demand relief or death. 
This degree of poverty is common, as we all know; but we 
who do not share it have no right to address those who do 
from our own standard, till we have placed their feet on our 
own level. Accursed is he who does not long to have this 
so — to take out at least the physical hell from this world! 
Unblest is lie who is not seeking, either by thought or act, to 
effect this poor degree of amelioration in the circumstances of 
his race. 

We take the subject of our sketch, then, somewhere between 
the abjectly poor and those in moderate circumstances. What 
we have to say may apply to either sex. and to any grade in 
this division of the human family, from the hodman and 
washerwoman up to the hard-working, poorly-paid lawyer 
clerk, schoolmaster, or scribe 

The advantages of such a position are many. In the first 
place, you belong, inevitably, to the active and suffering par* 



THE POOR MAN. „ 299 

of the world. You know the ills that try men's souls and 
bodies. You cannot creep into a safe retreat, arrogantly to 
judge, or heartlessly to forget, the others. They are always 
before you ; you see the path stained by their bleeding feet ; 
stupid and flinty, indeed, must you be, if you can hastily 
wound, or indolently forbear to aid them. Then, as to your- 
self, you know what your resources are; what you can do, 
what bear ; there is small chance for you to escape a well- 
tempered modesty. Then again, if you find power in yourself 
to endure the trial, there is reason and reality in some degree 
of self-reliance. The moral advantages of such training can 
scarcely fail to amount to something ; and as to the mental, 
that most important chapter, how the lives of men are fash- 
ioned and transfused by the experience of passion and the 
development of thought, presents new sections at every turn, 
such as the distant dilettante's opera-glasses will never detect, 
— to say nothing of the exercise of mere faculty, which, 
though insensible in its daily course, leads to results of im- 
mense importance. 

But the evils, the disadvantages, the clangers, how many, 
how imminent ! True, indeed, they are so. There is the 
early bending of the mind to the production of marketable 
results, which must hinder all this free play of intelligence, 
and deaden the powers that craved instruction. There is the 
callousness produced by the sight of more misery than it is 
possible to relieve ; the heart, at first so sensitive, taking ref- 
uge in a stolid indifference against the pangs of sympathetic 
pain, it had not force to bear. There is the perverting influ- 
ence of uncongenial employments, undertaken without or 
against choice, continued at unfit hours and seasons, till the 
man loses his natural relations with summer and winter, day 
and night, and has no sense more for natural beauty and joy. 
There is the mean providence, the perpetual caution to guard 
against ill, instead of the generous freedom of a mind which 
expects good to ensue from all good actions. There is the 



300 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

sad doubt whether it will do to indulge the kindly impulse, 
the calculation of dangerous chances, and the cost between 
the loving impulse and its fulfilment. Yes ; there is bitter 
chance of narrowness, meanness, and dulness on this path, 
and it requires great natural force, a wise and large view 
of life taken at an early age, or fervent trust in God, to 
evade them. 

It is astonishing to see the poor, no less than the rich, the 
slaves of externals. One would think that, where the rich 
man once became aware of the worthlessness of the mere 
trappings of life from the weariness of a spirit that found it- 
self entirely dissatisfied after pomp and self-indulgence, the 
poor man would learn this a hundred times from the experi- 
ence how entirely independent of them is all that is intrinsi- 
cally valuable in our life. But, no ! The poor man wants 
dignity, wants elevation of spirit. It is his own servility that 
forges the fetters that enslave him. Whether he cringe to, or 
rudely defy, the man in the coach and handsome coat, the 
cause and effect are the same. He is influenced by a costume 
and a position. He is not firmly rooted in the truth that only 
in so far as outward beauty and grandeur are representative 
of the mind of the possessor, can they count for any thing at 
all. O, poor man ! you are poor indeed, if you feel yourself 
so ; poor if you do not feel that a soul born of God, a mind 
capable of scanning the wondrous works of time and space, 
and a flexible body for its service, are the essential riches of 
a man, and all he needs to make him the equal of any other 
man. You are mean, if the possession of money or other 
external advantages can make you envy or shrink from a 
being mean enough to value himself upon such. Stand 
where you may, O man, you cannot be noble and rich if 
your brow be not broad and steadfast, if your eye beam not 
with a consciousness of inward worth, of eternal claims and 
hopes which such trifle- cannot at all affect A man without 
this majesty is ridiculous amid the flourish and decorations 



THE POOR HAN. 801 

procured by money, pitiable in the faded habiliments of pov- 
erty. But a man who is a man, a woman who is a woman, 
can never feel lessened or embarrassed because others look 
ignorantly on such matters. If they regret the want of 
these temporary means of power, it must be solely be- 
cause it fetters their motions, deprives them of leisure and 
desired means of improvement, or of benefiting those they 
love or pity. 

I have heard those possessed of rhetoric and imaginative 
tendency declare that they should have been outwardly great 
and inwardly free, victorious poets and heroes, if fate had 
allowed them a certain quantity of dollars. I have found it 
impossible to believe them. In" early youth, penury may 
have power to freeze the genial current of the soul, and pre- 
vent it, during one short life, from becoming sensible of its 
true vocation and destiny. But if it has become conscious of 
these, and yet there is not advance in any and all circum- 
stances, no change would avail. 

No, our poor man must begin higher ! He must, in the 
first place, really believe there is a God who ruleth — a fact 
to which few men vitally bear witness, though most are ready 
to affirm it with the lips. 

2. He must sincerely believe that rank and wealth 

" are but the guinea's stamp ; 
The man's the gold ; " — 

take his stand on his claims as a human being, made in God's 
own likeness, urge them when the occasion permits, but never 
be so false to them as to feel put down or injured by the want 
of mere external advantages. 

3. He must accept his lot, while he is in it. If he can 
change it for the better, let his energies be exerted to do so. 
But if he cannot, there is none that will not yield an opening 
to Eden, to the glories of Zion, and even to the subterranean 

26 



302 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

enchantments of our strange estate. There is none that may 
not be used with nobleness. 



" Who sweeps a room, as for Thy sake 
Makes that and th' action clean." 



4. Let him examine the subject enough to be convinced 
that there is not that vast difference between the employments 
that is supposed, in the means of expansion and refinement. 
All depends on the spirit as to the use that is made of an 
occupation. Mahomet was not a wealthy merchant, and pro- 
found philosophers have ripened on the benches, not of the 
lawyers, but the shoemakers. It did not hurt Milton to be 
a poor schoolmaster, nor Shakspeare to do the errands of a 
London play-house. Yes, " the mind is its own place," and 
if it will keep that place, all doors will be opened from it. 
Upon this subject we hope to offer some hints at a future 
day, in speaking of the different trades, professions, and 
modes of labor. 

5. Let him remember that from no man can the chief 
wealth be kept. On all men the sun and stars shine ; for all 
the oceans swell and rivers flow. All men may be brothers, 
lovers, fathers, friends; before all lie the mysteries of birth 
and death. If these w T ondrous means of wealth and bless- 
ing be likely to remain misused or unused, there are quite 
as many disadvantages in the way of the man of money 
as of the man who has none. Few who drain the choicest 
grape know the ecstasy of bliss and knowledge that follows a 
full draught of the wine of life. That has mostly been re- 
served for those on whose thoughts society, as a public, makes 
but a moderate claim. And if bitterness followed on tin- joy, 
if your fountain was frozen after its first gush by the cold 
winds of the world, yet, moneyless men. ye are at least nut 
wholly ignorant of what a human being has force to know. 
You have not skimmed over surfaces, and been dozing on 



THE POOE MAX. 303 

beds of down, during the rare and stealthy visits of Love and 
the Muses. Remember this, and, looking round on the ar- 
rangements of the lottery, see if you did not draw a prize in 
your turn. 

It will be seen that our ideal poor man needs to be reli- 
gious, wise, dignified, and humble, grasping at nothing, claim- 
ing all ; willing to wait, never willing to give up ; servile to 
none, the servant of all, and esteeming it the glory of a man 
to serve. The character is rare, but not unattainable. We 
have, hoAvever, found an approach to it more frequent in 
woman than in man. 



THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE. 

During a late visit to Boston, I visited with great pleasure 
the Chinese Museum, which has been opened there. 

There was much satisfaction in surveying its rich contents. 
if merely on account of their splendor and elegance, which, 
though fantastic to our tastes, presented an obvious standard 
of its own by which to prize it. The rich dresses of the 
imperial court, the magnificent jars, (the largest worth three 
hundred dollars, and looking as if it was worth much more,) 
the present-boxes and ivory work, the elegant interiors of the 
home and counting-room, — all these gave pleasure by their 
perfection, each in its kind. 

But the chief impression was of that unity of existence, so 
opposite to the European, and, for a change, so pleasant, from 
its repose and gilded lightness. Their imperial majesties do 
really seem so " perfectly serene," that we fancy we might 
become so under their sway, if not "thoroughly virtuous," :is 
they profess to be. Entirely a new mood would be our-. :i< 
we should sup in one of those pleasure boats, by the light of 
fanciful lanterns, or listen to the tinkling of pagoda bill-. 

The highest conventional refinement, of a certain kind, is 
apparent in all that belongs to the Chinese. The inviola- 
bility of" custom has not made their life heavy, but shaped it 
to the utmost adroitness for their own purposes. We 
now somewhat familiar with their literature, and we see per- 
vading it a poetry subtle and aromatic, like the odors of their 
appropriate beverage. Like tliat.too.it is all domestic, — ■ 
never wild. The social genius, fluttering on the win 
compliment, pervades every thing Chinese. Society has 

(304) 



THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE. 305 

moulded them, body and soul ; the youngest children are 
more social and Chinese than human ; and we doubt not the 
infant, with its first cry, shows its capacity for self-command 
and obedience to superiors. 

Their great man, Confucius, expresses this social genius in 
its most perfect state and highest form. His golden wisdom 
is the quintescence of social justice. He never forgets condi- 
tions and limits ; he is admirably wise, pure, and religious, 
but never towers above humanity — never soars into soli- 
tude. There is no token of the forest or cave in Confucius. 
Few men could understand him, because his nature was so 
thoroughly balanced, and his rectitude so pure ; not because 
his thoughts were too deep, or too high for them. In him 
should be sought the best genius of the Chinese, with that 
perfect practical good sense whose uses are universal. 

At one time I used to change from reading Confucius to 
one of the great religious books of another Eastern nation ; 
and it was always like leaving the street and the palace for 
the blossoming forest of the East, where in earlier times we 
are told the angels walked with men and talked, not of earth, 
but of heaven. 

As we looked at the forms moving about in the Museum, 
we could not wonder that the Chinese consider us, who call 
ourselves the civilized world, barbarians, so deficient were 
those forms in the sort of refinement that the Chinese prize 
above all. And our people deserve it for their senselessness 
in viewing them as barbarians, instead of seeing how perfectly 
they represent their own idea. They are inferior to us in 
important developments, but, on the whole, approach far 
nearer their own standard than we do ours. And it is 
wonderful that an enlightened European can fail to prize the 
sort of beauty they do develop. Sets of engravings we have 
teen lepresenting the culture of the tea plant, have brought 
to us images of an entirely original idyllic loveliness. One 
long resident in China has observed that nothing can be 
•2Q* 



306 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

more enchanting than the smile of love on the regular, hut 
otherwise expressionless face of a Chinese woman. It has 
the simplicity and abandonment of infantine, with the fulness 
of mature feeling. It never varies, but it does noi tiro. 

The same sweetness and elegance stereotyped now, hut 
having originally a deep root in their life as a race, niav In- 
seen in their poetry and music. The last we have heard, 
both from the voice and several instruments, at this Museum, 
for the first time, and were at first tempted to laugh, when 
something deeper forbade. Like their poetry, the ium- 
of the narrowest monotony, a kind of rosary, a repetition of 
phrases, and, in its enthusiasm and conventional excitement, 
like nothing else in the heavens and on the earth. Yet both 
the poetry and music have in them an expression of birds, 
roses, and moonlight; indeed, they suggest that state where 
"moonlight, and music, and feeling are one," though the soul 
seems to twitter, rather than sing of it. 

It is wonderful with how little practical insight travellers 
in China look on what they see. They seem to be struck by 
points of repulsion at once, and neither see nor tell us what 
could give any real clew to their facts. I do not speak 
now of the recent lecturers in this city, for I have not heard 
them ; but of the many, many books into which I have ear- 
lier looked with eager curiosity, — in vain, — I always found 
the same external facts, and the same prejudices which disa- 
bled the observer from piercing beneath them. I feel that I 
know something of the Chinese when reading Confucius, or 
looking at the figures on their tea-cups, or drinking a cup of 
genuine tea — rather an unusual felicity, it is said, in this 
ingenious city, which shares with the Chinese one trait at 
least. But the travellers rather take from than add to this 
knowledge; and a visit to this Museum would give more clear 
views than all the books I ever road yet. 

The juggling was well done, and so solemnly, with the 
same concentrated look as the music ! I saw the juggler 



THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE. 307 

afterwards at Ole Bull's concert, and he moved not a muscle 
while the nightingale was pouring forth its sweetest descant. 
Probably the avenues wanted for these strains to enter his 
heart had been clo.?ed by the imperial edict long ago. The 
resemblance borne by this juggler to our Indians is even 
greater than we have seen in any other case. His brother- 
hood does not, to us, seem surprising. Our Indians, too, are 
stereotyped, though in a different way ; they are of a mould 
capable of retaining the impression through ages ; and many 
of the traits of the two races, or two branches of a race, may 
seem to be identical, though so widely modified by circum- 
stances. They are all opposite to us, who have made ships, 
and balloons, and magnetic telegraphs, as symbolic expres- 
sions of our wants, and the means of gratifying them. We 
must console ourselves with these, and our organs and pianos, 
for our want of perfect good breeding, serenity, and " thor- 
ough virtue." 



KLOPSTOCK AND META* 

The poet had retired from the social circle. Its mirth was 
to his sickened soul a noisy discord, its sentiment a hollow 
mockery. With grief he felt that the recital of a generous 
action, the vivid expression of a noble thought, could only 
graze the surface of his mind. The desolate stillness of death 
lay brooding on its depths. The friendly smiles, the tender 
attentions which seemed so sweet in those hours when Meta 
was " crown of his cup and garnish of his dish," could give tin' 
present but a ghastly similitude to those blessed days. While 
his attention, disobedient to his wishes, kept turning painfully 
inward, the voice of the singer suddenly startled it back. A 
lovely maid, with moist, clear eye, and pleading, earnest 
was seated at the harpsichord. She sang a sad, and yet not 
hopeless, strain, like that of a lover who pines in absence, yet 
hopes again to meet his loved one. 

The heart of Klopstock rose to his lips, and natural tears 
suffused his eyes. She paused. Some youth of untouched 
heart, shallow, as yet, in all things, asked for a lively song, 
the expression of animal enjoyment. She hesitated, and cast 
a sidelong glance at the mourner. Heedlessly the request was 
urged: she wafted over the keys an airy prelude. A cold 
rush of anguish came over the awakened heart ; Klopstock 
rose, and hastily left the room. 

He entered his apartment, and threw himself upon the bed. 
The moon was nearly at the full: a tree near the large win- 

* Meta, the wife of Klopstock, one of Germany's most celebrated poets, 
is doubtless well known to many of our readers through the beautiful letters 
to Samuel Richardson, the novelist, or through Mrs. Jameson's work, enti- 
tled the Loves of the Poets. It is said that Klopstock wrote continually 
to her even after her death. 



KLOPSTOCK AND MET A. 809 

dow obscured its radiance, and cast into the room a flickering 
shadow, as its leaves kept swaying to and fro with the breeze. 

Vainly Klopstock sought for soothing influences in the con- 
templation of the soft and varying light. Sadness is always 
deepest at this hour of celestial calmness. The soul realizes 
its wants, and longs to be in harmony with itself far more in 
such an hour than when any outward ill is arousing or 
oppressing it. 

" Weak, fond wretch that I am ! " cried he. " I, the bard 
of the Messiah ! To what purpose have I nurtured my soul 
on the virtues of that sublime model, for whom no renunciation 
was too hard ? Four years an angel sojourned with me : her 
presence vivified my soul into purity and benevolence like her 
own. Happy was I as the saints who rest after their long 
struggles in the bosom of perfect love. I thought myself 
good because I sinned not against a bounteous God, because 
my heart could spare some drops of its overflowing oil and 
balm for the wounds of others : now what am I ? My angel 
leaves me, but she leaves with me the memory of blissful 
years and our perfect communion as an earnest of that 
happy meeting which awaits us, if I prove faithful to my own 
words of faith, to those strains of religious confidence which 
are even now cheering onward many an inexperienced youth. 
And what are my deeds and feelings? The springs of life 
and love frozen, here I lie, sunk in grief, as if I knew no 
world beyond the grave. The joy of others seems an insult, 
their grief a dead letter, compared with my own. Meta ! 
Meta ! couldst thou see me in my hour of trial, thou wouldst 
disdain thy chosen one!" 

A strain of sweet and solemn music swelled on his ear — one 
of those majestic harmonies which, were there no other proof of 
the soul's immortality, must suggest the image of an intellect- 
ual paradise. It closed, and Meta stood before him. A long 
veil of silvery whiteness fell over her, through which might 
be seen the fixed but nobly-serene expression of the large 
blue eyes, and a holy, seraphic dignity of mien. Klopstock 



310 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

knelt before her : his soul was awed to earth. "Has! thou 
come, my adored !" said he, "from thy home of bliss, to tell 
me that thou no longer Invest thy unworthy friend? " 

"O, speak not thus!" replied the softest and most penetrat- 
ing of voices. " God wills not that his purified creatures 
should look in contempt or anger on those suffering the ills 
from which they are set free. O, no, my love ! my husband ! 
I come to speak consolation to thy sinking spirit. When you 
left me to breathe my last sigh in the arms of a sister, who, 
however dear, was nothing to my heart in comparison with 
you, I closed my eyes, wishing that the light of day might de- 
part with thee. The thought of what thou must suffer con- 
vulsed my heart with one last pang. Once more I murmured 
the wish I had so often expressed, that the sorrows of the sur- 
vivor might have fallen to my lot rather than to thine. In 
that pang my soul extricated itself from the body ; a sensa- 
tion like that from exquisite fragrance came over me. and 
with breezy lightness I rose into the pure serene. It was ■ 
moment of feeling almost wild, — so free, so nnobscured. I 
had not yet passed the verge of comparison; I could not yet 
embrace the Infinite: therefore my joy was like those of 
earth — intoxicating. 

" Words cannot paint, even to thy eager soul, my friend, the 
winged swiftness, the onward, glowing hopefulness of my path 
through the fields of azure. I paused, at length, in a region 
of keen, pure, bluish light, such as beams from Jupiter to thy 
planet on a lovely October evening. 

■"Here an immediate conviction pervaded me that this was 
home — was my appointed resting place; a full tide of DOp6 
and satisfaction similar to the emotion excited on my first ac- 
quaintance with thy poem flowed over this hour: a joyous 
confidence in the existence of Goodness and Beauty supplied 
fora season, the want of thy society. The delicious clearness 
of every emotion exalted my BOul into a realm full of life. 
Some time elapsed in this .-tale. The whole of my temporal 
existence passed in review before me. My thoughts, my 



KLOPSTOCK AND MET A. 311 

action?, were placed in full relief before the cleared eye of my 
spirit. Beloved, thou wilt rejoice to know that thy Meta 
could then feel that her worst faults sprung from ignorance. 
As I was striving to connect my present state with my past, 
and, as it were, poising myself on the brink of space and time, 
the breath of another presence came across me, and, gradually 
evolving from the bosom of light, a figure rose before me, in 
grace, in sweetness, how excelling ! Fixing her eyes on mine 
with the full gaze of love, she said, in flute-like tones, ' Dost 
thou know me, my sister ? ' 

" ' Art thou not,' I replied, ' the love of Petrarch ? I have 
seen the portraiture of thy mortal lineaments, and now recog- 
nize that perfect beauty, the full violet flower which thy 
lover's genius was able to anticipate.' 

"'Yes,' she said, " I am Laura — on earth most happy, yet 
most sad ; most rich, and yet most poor. I come to greet her 
whom I recognize as the inheritress of all that was lovely in 
my earthly being, more happy than I in her temporal state. 
I have sympathized, wife of Klopstock ! in thy transitory 
happiness. Thy lover was thy priest and thy poet ; thy model 
and oracle was thy bosom friend. All that earth could give 
was thine ; and I joyed to think on thy rewarded love, thy 
freedom of soul, and unchecked faith. Follow me now : we 
are to dwell in the same circle, and I am appointed to show 
thee thine abiding place.' 

" She guided me towards the source of that light which I 
have described to thee. "We paused before a structure of 
dazzling whiteness, which stood on a slope, and overlooked a 
valley of exceeding beauty. It was shaded by trees which 
had that peculiar calmness that the shadows of trees have be- 
low in the high noon of summer moonlight — 



' . . . trees which are still 
As the shades of trees below, 
When they sleep on the lonely hill, 
In the summer moonlight glow.' 



312 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

It was decked with majestic sculptures, of which I m:iy speak 
in some future interview. Before it rose a fountain, from 
which the stream of light flowed down the valley, dividing it 
into two unequal parts. The larger and farther from us 
seemed, when I first looked on it, populous with shapes, beau- 
teous as that of my guide. But, when I looked more fix- 
edly, I saw only the valley, carpeted with large blue and 
white flowers, which emitted a hyacinthine odor. Here. 
Laura, turning round, asked, 'Is not this a poetic home, 
Meta ? ' 

"I paused a moment ere I replied, 'It is indeed a place of 
beauty, but more like the Greek elysium than the home Klop- 
stock and I were wont to picture to ourselves beyond the 
gates of Death.' 

"'Thou sayest well,' she said; 'nor is this thy final home; 
thou wilt but wait here a season, till Klopstock comes/ 

" ' What,' said I, ' alone ! alone in Eden ? ' 

"'Has not Meta, then, collected aught on which she might 
meditate? Hast thou never read, "While I was musing, the 
fire burned" ?' 

" ' Laura,' said I, ' spare the reproach. The love of Pe- 
trach, whose soul grew up in golden fetters, whose strongest 
emotions, whose most natural actions were, through a long 
life, constantly repressed by the dictates of duty and honor, 
she content might pass long years in that contemplation which 
was on earth her only solace. But I, whose life has all been 
breathed out in love and ministry, can I endure that my 
existence be reversed? Can I live without utterance of spirit ? 
or would such be a stage of that progressive happiness we are 
promised ? ' 

'"True, little one!' said she, with her lir-t heavenly >mile ; 
* nor shall it be thus with thee. A ministry is appointed 
thee — the same which I exercised while waiting hen- tor that 
friend whom below 1 was forbidden to call my own.' 

"She touched me, and from my shoulders Bprung a pair of 
wings, white and azure, wide and glistering. 



KLOPSTOCK AND META. 313 

" ' Meta ! ' she resumed, ' spirit of love ! be this thine office. 
"Wherever a soul pines in absence from all companionship, 
breathe sweet thoughts of sympathy to be had in another 
life, if deserved by virtuous exertions and mental progress. 
Bind up the wounds of hearts torn by bereavement ; teach 
them where healing is to be found. Revive in the betrayed and 
forsaken heart that belief in virtue and nobleness, without 
which life is an odious, disconnected dream. Fan every flame 
of generous enthusiasm, and on the altars where it is kindled 
strew thou the incense of wisdom. In such a ministry thou 
couldst never be alone, since hope must dwell with thee. 
But I shall" often come and discourse to thee of the future 
glories of thy destiny. Yet more : Seest thou that marble 
tablet ? Retire here when thy pinions are wearied. Give up 
thy soul to faith. Fix thine eyes on the tablet, and the deeds 
and thoughts which fill the days of Klopstock shall be traced 
on it. Thus shall ye not be for a day divided. Hast thou, 
Meta, aught more to ask ? " 

" ' Messenger of peace and bliss ! ' said I, i dare I frame 
another request ? Is it too presumptuous to ask that Klop- 
stock may be one of those to whom I minister, and that he 
may know it is Meta who consoles him ? ' 

" ' Even this, to a certain extent, I have power to grant. 
Most pure, most holy was thy life with Klopstock ; ye taught 
one another only good things, and peculiarly are ye rewarded. 
Thou mayst occasionally manifest thyself to him, and answer 
his prayers with words, — so long,' she continued, looking 
fixedly at me, ' as he continues true to himself and thee ! ' 

" 0, my beloved, why tell thee what were my emotions at 
such a promise ? Ah ! I must now leave thee, for dawn is 
bringing back the world's doings. Soon I shall visit thee 
again. Farewell ! Remember that thy every thought and 
deed will be known to me, and be happy ! " 

She vanished. 

27 



WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A VOTER? 

A Fable. 

The country had been denuded of its forests, and men 
cried, " Come ! we must plant anew, or there will be no shade 
for the homes of our children, or fuel for their hearths. Let 
us find the best kernels for a new growth." And a basket of 
butternuts was offered. 

But the planters rejected it with disgust. " What a black, 
rough coat it has ! " said they ; " it is entirely unfit for the 
dishes on a nobleman's table, nor have we ever seen it in such 
places. It must have a greasy, offensive kernel ; nor can fine 
trees grow up from such a nut." 

" Friends," said one of the planters, " this decision may be 
rash. The chestnut has not a handsome outside ; it is long 
encased in troublesome burs, and, when disengaged, is al- 
most as black as these nuts you despise. Yet from it grow 
trees of lofty stature, graceful form, and long life. Its ker- 
nel is white, and has furnished food to the most poetic and 
splendid nations of the older world." 

" Don't tell me," says another ; " brown is entirely different 
from black. I like brown very well ; there is Oriental pre- 
cedent for its respectability. Perhaps we will use some of 
your chestnuts, if we can get fine samples. But for the pres- 
ent, I think we should use only English walnuts, such as our 
forefathers delighted to honor. Here are many basketsfu] of 
them, quite enough for the present. We will plant them with 
a sprinkling between of the chestnut and acorn." 

" But," rejoined the other, u many butternuts are beneath 

(314) 



WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A VOTER? 315 

the sod, and yon cannot help a mixture of them being in your 
wood, at any rate." 

" Well, we will grub them up and cut them down when- 
ever we find them. We can use the young shrubs for kin- 
dlings." 

At that moment two persons entered the council of a darker 
complexion than most of those present, as if born beneath the 
glow of a more scorching sun. First came a woman, beauti- 
ful in the mild, pure grandeur of her look ; in whose large 
dark eye a prophetic intelligence was mingled with infinite 
sweetness. She looked at the assembly with an air of sur- 
prise, as if its aspect was strange to her. She threw quite 
back her veil, and stepping aside, made room for her com- 
panion. His form was youthful, about the age of one we 
have seen in many a picture produced by the thought of 
eighteen centuries, as of one " instructing the doctors." I 
need not describe the features ; all minds have their own im- 
pressions of such an image, 

" Severe in youthful beauty." 

In his hand he bore a white banner, on which was em- 
broidered, " Peace and Good Will to Men." And the 
words seemed to glitter and give out sparks, as he paused in 
the assembly. 

" I came hither," said he, " an uninvited guest, because I read 
sculptured above the door 'All men born free and equal,' 
and in this dwelling hoped to find myself at home. What is 
the matter in dispute ? " 

Then they whispered one to another, and murmurs were 
heard — " He is a mere boy ; young people are always foolish 
and extravagant ; " or, " He looks like a fanatic." But others 
said, " He looks like one whom we have been taught to honor. 
It will be best to tell him the matter in dispute." 

When he heard it, he smiled, and said, " It will be needful 
first to ascertain which of the nuts is soundest within." And 



316 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

with a hammer he broke one, two, and more of the English 
walnuts, and they were mouldy. Then he tried the other 
nuts, but found most of them fresh within and white, for they 

were fresh from the bosom of the earth, while the others had 
been kept in a damp cellar. 

And he said, " You had better plant them together, lest 
none, or few, of the walnuts be sound. And why are you so 
reluctant? Has not Heaven permitted them both to grow on the 
same soil? and does not that show what is intended about it?" 

And they said, " But they are black and ugly to look upon." 
He replied, " They do not seem so to me. What my Father 
has fashioned in such guise offends not mine eye." 

And they said, " But from one of these trees flew a bird of 
prey, who has done great wrong. "We meant, therefore, to 
suffer no such tree among us." 

And he replied, " Amid the band of ray countrymen and 
friends there was one guilty of the blackest crime — that of 
selling for a price the life of his dearest friend; yet all the 
others of his blood were not put under ban because of his 
guilt." 

Then they said, " But in the Holy Book our teachers tell 
us, we are bid to keep in exile or distress whatsoever is black 
and unseemly in our eyes." 

Then he put his hand to his brow, and cried in a voice of 
the most penetrating pathos, " Have I been so long among 
you, and ye have not known me?" And the woman turned 
from them the majestic hope of her glance, and both forms 
suddenly vanished ; but the banner was left trailing in the 
dust. 

The men stood gazing at one another. After which one 
mounted on high, and said, " Perhaps, my friends, we carry 
too far this aversion to objects merely because thev are 
black. I heard, the other day, a wise man say that black 
was the color of evil — marked as such by (led, and that 
whenever a white man struck a black man lie did an act of 



WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A YOTER ? 317 

worship to God.* I could not quite believe him. I hope, in 
what I am about to add, I shall not be misunderstood. I am 
no abolitionist. I respect above all things, divine or human, 
the constitution framed by our forefathers, and the peculiar 
institutions hallowed by the usage of their sons. I have no 
sympathy with the black race in this country. I wish it to 
be understood that I feel towards negroes the purest personal 
antipathy. It is a family trait with us. My little son, scarce 
able to speak, will cry out, ' Nigger ! Nigger ! ' whenever he 
sees one, and try to throw things at them. He made a whole 
omnibus load laugh the other day by his cunning way of doing 
this.f The child of my political antagonist, on the other 
hand, says ' he likes tullared children the best.' f You see 
he is tainted in his cradle by the loose principles of his parents, 
even before he can say nigger, or pronounce the more refined 
appellation. But that is no matter. I merely mention this 

by the way ; not to prejudice you against Mr. , but that 

you may appreciate the very different state of things in my 
family, and not misinterpret what I have to say. I was lately 
in one of our prisons where a somewhat injudicious indulgence 
had extended to one of the condemned felons, a lost and 
wretched outcast from society, the use of materials for paint- 
ing, rhat having been his profession. He had completed at 
his leisure a picture of the Lord's Supper. Most of the 
figures were well enough, hut Judas he had represented as a 
black, f Now, gentlemen, I am of opinion that this is an 
unwarrantable liberty taken with the Holy Scriptures, and 
shows too much prejudice in the community. It is my wish 
to be moderate and fair, and preserve a medium, neither, on 
the one hand, yielding the wholesome antipathies planted in 
our breasts as a safeguard against degradation, and our con- 
stitutional obligations, which, as I have before observed, are, 
with me, more binding than any other ; nor, on the other 



* Fact, that this is affirmed. f Facts. 

27* 



318 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

hand, forgetting that liberality and wisdom which are the pre- 
rogative of every citizen of this free commonwealth. I agree, 
then, with our young visitor. I hardly know, indeed, why a 
stranger, and one so young, was permitted to mingle in this 
council ; but it was certainly thoughtful in him to crack and 
examine the nuts. I agree that it may be well to plant some 
of the black nuts among the others, so that, if many of the 
walnuts fail, we may make use of this inferior tree." 

At this moment arose a hubbub, and such a clamor of 
" dangerous innovation," " political capital," " low-minded dem- 
agogue," " infidel who denies the Bible," " lower link in the 
chain of creation," &c, that it is impossible to say what was 
the decision. 



DISCOVERIES. 

Sometimes, as we meet people in the street, we catch a 
sentence from their lips that affords a clew to their history and 
habits of mind, and puts our own minds on quite a new course. 

Yesterday two female figures drew nigh upon the street, in 
whom we had only observed their tawdry, showy style of 
dress, when, as they passed, one remarked to the other, in the 
tone of a person who has just made a discovery, " /think there 
is something very handsome in a fine child." 

Poor woman ! that seemed to have been the first time in 
her life that she had made the observation. The charms of 
the human being, in that fresh and flower-like age which is 
intended perpetually to refresh us in our riper, renovate us in 
our declining years, had never touched her heart, nor awak- 
ened for her the myriad thoughts and fancies that as naturally 
attend the sight of childhood as bees swarm to the blossoming 
bough. Instead of being to her the little angels and fairies, 
the embodied poems which may ennoble the humblest lot, they 
had been to her mere " torments," who " could never be kept 
still, or their faces clean." 

How piteous is the loss of those who do not contemplate 
childhood in a spirit of holiness ! The heavenly influence on 
their own minds, of attention to cultivate each germ of great 
and good qualities, of avoiding the least act likely to injure, is 
lost — a loss dreary and piteous ! for which no gain can com- 
pensate. But how unspeakably deplorable the petrifaction 
of those who look upon their little friends without any sym- 
pathy even, whose hearts are, by selfishness, worldliness, and 
vanity, seared from all gentle instincts, who can no longer 

(319) 



320 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

appreciate their spontaneous grace and glee, that eloquence in 
every look, motion, and stammered word, those lively and 
incessant charms, over which the action of the lower motives 
with which the social system is rife, may so soon draw a veil ! 

We can no longer speak thus of all children. On some, 
especially in cities, the inheritance of sin and deformity from 
bad parents falls too heavily, and incases at once the spark 
of soul which God still doth not refuse in such instances, in a 
careful, knowing, sensual mask. Such are never, in fact, 
children at all. But the rudest little cubs that are free from 
taint, and show the affinities with nature and the soul, are still 
young and flexible, and rich in gleams of the loveliness to be 
hoped from perfected human nature. 

It is sad that all men do not feel these things. It is sad 
that they wilfully renounce so large a part of their heritage, 
and go forth to buy filtered water, while the fountain is gush- 
ing freshly beside the door of their own huts. As with the 
charms of children, so with other things. They do not know 
that the sunset is worth seeing every night, and the shows of 
the forest better than those of the theatre, and the work of 
bees and beetles more instructive, if scanned with care, than 
the lyceum lecture. The cheap knowledge, the cheap pleas- 
ures, that are spread before every one, they cast aside in 
search of an uncertain and feverish joy. We did, indeed, 
hear one man say that he could not possibly be deprived of 
his pleasures, since he could always, even were his abode in 
the narrowest lane, have a blanket of sky above his head, 
where he could see the clouds pass, and the stars glitter. But 
men in general remain unaware that 

"Life's best joys are nearest us, 
Lie close about our feet." 

For them the light dresses all objects in endless novelty, 
the rose glows, domestic love smiles, and childhood gives out 
with sportive freedom its oracles — in vain. That woman had 



DISCOVERIES. 321 

seen beauty in gay shawls, in teacups, in carpets ; but only 
of late bad she discovered that " there was something beauti- 
ful in a fine child." Poor human nature ! Thou must have 
been changed at nurse by a bad demon at some time, and 
strangely maltreated, — to have such blind and rickety inter- 
vals as come upon thee now and then ! 



POLITENESS TOO GREAT A LUXURY TO BE 
GIVEN TO THE POOR. 

A few days ago, a lady, crossing in one of the ferry boats 
that ply from this city, saw a young boy, poorly dressed, sit- 
ting with an infant in his arms on one of the benches. She 
observed that the child looked sickly and coughed. This, as 
the day was raw, made her anxious in its behalf, and she went 
to the boy and asked whether he was alone there with the 
baby, and if he did not think the cold breeze dangerous for it. 
He replied that he was sent out with the child to take care of 
it, and that his father said the fresh air from the water would 
do it good. 

While he made this simple answer, a number of persons 
had collected around to listen, and one of them, a well-dressed 
woman, addressed the boy in a string of such questions and 
remarks as these : — 

" What is your name ? Where do you live ? Are you tell- 
ing us the truth? It's a shame to have that baby out in such 
weather ; you'll be the death of it. (To the bystanders :) I 
would go and see his mother, and tell her about it, if I was 
sure he had told us the truth about where he lived. How do 
you expect to get back? Here, (in the rudest voice,) some- 
body says you have not told the truth as to where you live." 

The child, whose only offence consisted in taking care of 
the little one in public, and answering when he was spoken to, 
began to shed tears at the accusations thus grossly preferred 
against him. The bystanders stared at both ; but among 
them all there was not one with sufficiently clear notions of 

(322) 



POLITENESS TOO LUXURIOUS FOR THE POOR. 323 

propriety and moral energy to say to this impudent questioner 
" Woman, do you suppose, because you wear a handsome 
shawl, and that boy a patched jacket, that you have any right 
to speak to him at all, unless he wishes it — far less to prefer 
against him these rude accusations? Your vulgarity is unen- 
durable ; leave the place or alter your manner." 

Many such instances have we seen of insolent rudeness, 
or more insolent affability, founded on no apparent grounds, 
except an apparent difference in pecuniary position ; for no 
one can suppose, in such cases, the offending party has really 
enjoyed the benefit of refined education and society, but all 
present let them pass as matters of course. It was sad to see 
how the poor would endure — mortifying to see how the purse- 
proud dared offend. An excellent man, who was, in his early 
years, a missionary to the poor, used to speak afterwards with 
great shame of the manner in which he had conducted himself 
towards them. " When I recollect," said he, " the freedom 
with which I entered their houses, inquired into all their 
affairs, commented on their conduct, and disputed their state- 
ments, I wonder I was never horsewhipped, and feel that I 
ought to have been ; it would have done me good, for I needed 
as severe a lesson on the universal obligations of politeness in 
its only genuine form of respect for man as man, and delicate 
sympathy with each in his peculiar position." 

Charles Lamb, who was indeed worthy to be called a human 
being because of those refined sympathies, said, "You call 
him a gentleman : does his washerwoman find him so ? " 
We may say, if she did, she found him a man, neither 
treating her with vulgar abruptness, nor giving himself airs 
of condescending liveliness, but treating her with that genuine 
respect which a feeling of equality inspires. 

To doubt the veracity of another is an insult which in most 
civilized communities must in the so-called higher classes be 
atoned for by blood, but, in those same communities, the same 
men will, with the utmost lightness, doubt the truth of one 



824 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

who wears a ragged coat, and thus do all they can to injure 
and degrade him by assailing his self-respect, and breaking 
the feeling of personal honor — a wound to which hurts a 
man as a wound to its bark does a tree. 

Then how rudely are favors conferred, just as a bone is 
thrown to a dog ! A gentleman, indeed, will not do that with- 
out accompanying signs of sympathy and regard. Just as 
this woman said, " If you have told the truth I will go and 
see your mother," are many acts performed on which the 
actors pride themselves as kind and charitable. 

All men might learn from the French in these matters. 
That people, whatever be their faults, are really well bred, 
and many acts might be quoted from their romantic annals, 
where gifts were given from rich to poor with a graceful cour- 
tesy, equally honorable and delightful to the giver and the 
receiver. 

In Catholic countries there is more courtesy, for charity is 
there a duty, and must be done for God's sake ; there is less 
room for a man to give himself the pharisaical tone about it. 
A rich man is not so surprised to find himself in contact with 
a poor one ; nor is the custom of kneeling on the open pave- 
ment, the silk robe close to the beggar's rags, without profit. 
The separation by pews, even on the day when all meet near- 
est, is as bad for the manners as the soul. 

Blessed be he, or she, who has passed through this world, 
not only with an open purse and willingness to render the aid 
of mere outward benefits, but with an open eye and opea 
heart, ready to cheer the downcast, and enlighten the dull by 
words of comfort and looks of love. The wayside charities 
are the most valuable both as to sustaining hope and diffusing 
knowledge, and none can render them who has not an expan- 
sive nature, a heart alive to affection, and some true notion, 
however imperfectly developed, of the meaning of human 
brotherhood. 

Such a one can never sauce the given meat with taunts, 



POLITENESS TOO LUXURIOUS FOR THE POOR. 825 

freeze the viand by a cold glance of doubt, or plunge the man, 
who asked for his hand, deeper back into the mud by any 
kind of rudeness. 

In the little instance with which we began, no help was 
asked, unless by the sight of the timid little boy's old jacket. 
But the license which this seemed to the well-clothed woman 
to give to rudeness, was so characteristic of a deep fault now 
existing, that a volume of comments might follow and a host 
of anecdotes be drawn from almost any one's experience in 
exposition of it. These few words, perhaps, may awaken 
thought in those who have drawn tears from other's eyes 
through an ignorance brutal, but not hopelessly so, if they are 
willing to rise above it. 
28 



CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

The meeting on Monday night at the Tabernacle was to 
us an occasion of deep and peculiar interest. It was deep, 
for the feelings there expressed and answered bore witness to 
the truth of our belief, that the sense of right is not dead, but 
only sleepeth in this nation. A man who is manly enough to 
appeal to it, will be answered, in feeling at least, if not in 
action, and while there is life there is hope. Those who BO 
rapturously welcomed one who had sealed his faith by deeds 
of devotion, must yet acknowledge in their breasts the germs 
of like nobleness. 

It was an occasion of peculiar interest, such as we have 
not had occasion to feel since, in childish years, we saw Lafay- 
ette welcomed by a grateful people. Even childhood well 
understood that the gratitude then expressed was not so much 
for the aid which had been received as for the motives and 
feelings with which it was given. The nation rushed out as 
one man to thank Lafayette, that he had been able, amid the 
prejudices and indulgences of high rank in the old regime of 
society, to understand the great principles which were about 
to create a new form, and answer, manlike, with love, service, 
and contempt of selfish interests to the voice of humanity 
demanding its rights. Our freedom would have been achieved 
without Lafayette; but it was a happiness and a blessing 
to number the young French nobleman as the champion of 
Ameriean independence, and to know that he had given the 
prime of his life to our cause, because it was the cause of jus- 
tice. With similar feelings of joy, pride, and hope, we wel- 
come Cassius M. Clay, a man who has, in like manner, freed 

(326) 



CASSIUS M. CLAY. 327 

himself from the prejudices of his position, disregarded selfish 
considerations, and quitting the easy path in which he might 
have walked to station in the sight of men, and such external 
distinctions as his State and nation readily confer on men so 
born and bred, and with such abilities, chose rather an interest 
in their souls, and the honors history will not fail to award to 
the man who enrolls his name and elevates his life for the 
cause of right and those universal principles whose recogni- 
tion can alone secure to man the destiny without which he 
cannot be happy, but which he is continually sacrificing for 
the impure worship of idols. Yea, in this country, more than 
in the old Palestine, do they give their children to the fire in 
honor of Moloch, and sell the ark confided to them by the 
Most High for shekels of gold and of silver. Partly it was 
the sense of this position which Mr. Clay holds, as a man 
who esteems his own individual convictions of right more than 
local interests or partial, political schemes, that gave him such 
an enthusiastic welcome on Monday night from the very hearts 
of the audience, but still more that his honor is at this moment 
identified with the liberty of the press, which has been insulted 
and infringed in him. About this there can be in fact but one 
opinion. In vain Kentucky calls meetings, states reasons, 
gives names of her own to what has been done.* The rest 
of the world knows very well what the action is, and will 
call it by but one name. Regardless of this ostrich mode of 
defence, the world has laughed and scoffed at the act of a peo- 
ple professing to be free and defenders of freedom, and the 
recording angel has written down the deed as a lawless act of 
violence and tyranny, from which the man is happy who can 
call himself pure. 

With the usual rhetoric of the wrong side, the apolo- 
gists for this mob violence have wished to injure Mr. Clay 
by the epithets of " hot-headed," " visionary," " fanatical." 
But, if any have believed that such could apply to a man so 

[* The destruction of Mr. Clay's press by a mob. — Ed.] 



328 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

clear-sighted as to his objects and the way of achieving them, 
the mistake must have been corrected on Monday night. 
Whoever saw Mr. Clay that night, saw in him a man of deep 
and strong nature, thoroughly in earnest, who had well consid- 
ered his ground, and saw that though open, as the truly noble 
must be, to new views and convictions, yet his direction is 
taken, and the improvement to be made will not be to turn 
aside, but to expedite and widen his course in that direction. 
Mr. Clay is young, young enough, thank Heaven ! to promise 
a long career of great thoughts and honorable deeds. But 
still, to those who esteem youth an unpardonable fault, and 
one that renders incapable of counsel, we would say that he 
is at the age when a man is capable of great thoughts and 
great deeds, if ever. His is not a character that will ever 
grow old ; it is not capable of a petty and short-sighted pru- 
dence, but can only be guided by a large wisdom which is 
more young than old, for it has within itself the springs of 
perpetual youth, and which, being far-sighted and prophetical, 
joins ever with the progress party without waiting till it be 
obviously in the ascendant. 

Mr. Clay has eloquence, but only from the soul. He does 
not possess the art of oratory, as an art. Before he gets 
warmed he is too slow, and breaks his sentences too much. 
His transitions are not made with skill, nor is the structure 
of his speech, as a whole, symmetrical ; yet, throughout, his 
grasp is firm upon his subject, and all the words are laden 
with the electricity of a strong mind and generous nature. 
When he begins to glow, and his deep mellow eye fills with 
light, the speech melts and glows too, and he is able to impress 
upon the hearer the full effect of firm conviction, conceived 
with impassioned energy. His often rugged and harsh em- 
phasis flashes and sparkles then, and we feel that there is in 
the furnace a stream of iron: iron, fortress of the nations 
and victor of the seas, worth far more, in stress of storm, than 
all the gold and gems of rhetoric. 



CASSITJS M. CLAY. 329 

The great principle that he who wrongs one wrongs all, 
and that no part can be wounded without endangering the 
whole, was the healthy root of Mr. Clay's speech. The report 
does not do justice to the turn of expression in some parts 
which were most characteristic. These, indeed, depended 
much on the tones and looks of the speaker. We should 
speak of them as full of a robust and homely sincerity, digni- 
fied by the heart of the gentleman, a heart too secure of its 
respect for the rights of others to need any of the usual inter- 
positions. His good-humored sarcasm, on occasion of several 
vulgar interruptions, was very pleasant, and easily at those 
times might be recognized in him the man of heroical nature, 
who can only show himself adequately in time of interruption 
and of obstacle. If that be all that is wanted, we shall surely 
see him wholly ; there will be no lack of American occasions 
to call out the Greek fire. We want them all — the Grecian 
men, who feel a godlike thirst for immortal glory, and to 
develop the peculiar powers with which the gods have gifted 
them. We want them all — the poet, the thinker, the hero. 
Whether our heroes need sivords, is a more doubtful point, 
we think, than Mr. Clay believes. Neither do we believe in 
some of the means he proposes to further his aims. God 
uses all kinds of means, but men, his priests, must keep their 
hands pure. Nobody that needs a bribe shall be asked to 
further our schemes for emancipation. But there is room 
enough, and time enough to think out these points till all is in 
harmony. For the good that has been done and the truth 
that has been spoken, for the love of such that has been seen 
in this great city struggling up through the love of money, 
we should to-day be thankful — and we are so. 
28* 



THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. 

The stars tell all their secrets to the flowers, and, if we 
only knew how to look around us, we should not need to look 
above. But man is a plant of slow growth, and great heat is 
required to bring out his leaves. He must be promise 1 ;i 
boundless futurity, to induce him to use aright the present 
hour. In youth, fixing his eyes on those distant worlds of 
light, he promises himself to attain them, and there find the 
answer to all his wishes. His eye grows keener as he gazes* 
a voice from the earth calls it downward, and he finds all at 
his feet. 

I was riding on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, musing 
on an old English expression, which I had only lately learned 
to interpret. " He was fulfilled of all nobleness." "Words so 
significant charm us like a spell, long before we know their 
meaning. This I had now learned to interpret. Life had 
ripened from the green bud, and I had seen the difference, 
wide as from earth to heaven, between nobleness and the 
fulfilment of nobleness. 

A fragrance beyond any thing I had ever known came 
suddenly upon the air, and interrupted my meditation. I 
looked around me, but saw no flower from which it could 
proceed. There is no word for it ; exquisite and delicious 
have lost all meaning now. It was of a full and penetrating 
sweetness, too keen and delicate to be cloying. Unable to 
trace it, I rode on, but the remembrance of it pursued me. I 
had a feeling that I must forever regret my loss, my want, if 
I did not return and find the poet of the lake, whose voice 
was such perfume. In earlier days, I might have disre- 

(330) 



THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. 331 

garded such a feeling ; but now I have learned to prize the 
monitions of my nature as they deserve, and learn sometimes 
what is not for sale in the market place. So I turned back, 
and rode to and fro, at the risk of abandoning the object of 
my ride. 

I found her at last, the queen of the south, singing to her- 
self in her lonely bower. Such should a sovereign be, most 
regal when alone ; for then there is no disturbance to prevent 
the full consciousness of power. All occasions limit ; a king- 
dom is but an occasion ; and no sun ever saw itself adequately 
reflected on sea or land. 

Nothing at the south had affected me like the magnolia. 
Sickness and sorrow, which have separated me from my kind, 
have requited my loss by making known to me the loveliest 
dialect of the divine language. " Flowers," it has been truly 
said, "are the only positive present made us by nature." 
Man has not been ungrateful, but consecrated the gift to 
adorn the darkest and brightest hours. If it is ever perverted, 
it is to be used as a medicine ; and even this vexes me. But 
no matter for that. We have pure intercourse with these 
purest creations ; we love them for their own sake, for their 
beauty's sake. As Ave grow beautiful and pure, we under- 
stand them better. With me knowledge of them is a circum- 
stance, a habit of my life, rather than a merit. I have lived 
with them, and with them almost alone, till I have learned to 
interpret the slightest signs by which they manifest their fair 
thoughts. Th-jre is not a flower in my native region which 
has not for me a tale, to which every year is adding new inci- 
dents ; yet the growths of this new climate brought me new 
and sweet emotions, and, above all others, was the magnolia 
a revelation. When I first beheld her, a stately tower of 
verdure, each cup, an imperial vestal, full-displayed to the 
eye of day, yet guarded from the too hasty touch even of the 
Wind by its graceful decorums of firm, glistening, broad, green 
leaves, I stood astonished, as might a lover of music, who, after 



332 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

hearing in all his youth only the harp or the bugle, should be 
saluted, on entering some vast cathedral, by the full peal of its 
organ. 

After I had recovered from my first surprise, I became 
acquainted with the flower, and found all its life in harmony. 
Its fragrance, less enchanting than that of the rose, excited a 
pleasure more full of life, and which could longer be enjoyed 
without satiety. Its blossoms, if plucked from their home, 
refused to retain their dazzling hue, but drooped and grew 
sallow, like princesses captive in the prison of a barbarous foe. 

But there was something quite peculiar in the fragrance 
of this tree ; so much so, that I had not at first recognized 
the magnolia. Thinking it must be of a species I had never 
yet seen, I alighted, and leaving my horse, drew near to ques- 
tion it with- eyes of reverent love. 

" Be not surprised," replied those lips of untouched purity, 
" stranger, who alone hast known to hear in my voice a tone 
more deep and full than that of my beautiful sisters. Sit 
down, and listen to my tale, nor fear that I will overpower 
thee by too much sweetness. I am, indeed, of the race you 
love, but in it I stand alone. In my family I have no sister 
of the heart, and though my root is the same as that of the 
other virgins of our royal house, I bear not the same blossom, 
nor can I unite my voice with theirs in the forest choir. 
Therefore I dwell here alone, nor did I ever expect to tell 
the secret of my loneliness. But to all that ask there is an 
answer, and I speak to thee. 

" Indeed, we have met before, as that secret feeling of 
home, which makes delight so tender, must inform thee. 
The spirit that I utter once inhabited the glory of the most 
glorious climates. I dwelt once in the orange tree." 

"Ah?" said I ; "then I did not mistake. It is the same 
voice I heard in the saddest season of my youth. I stood 
one evening on a high terrace in another land, the land 
where 'the plant man has grown to greatest size.' It was an 



THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE POXTCHARTRAIN. 333 

evening whose unrivalled splendor demanded perfection in 
man — answering to that he found in nature — a sky ' black- 
blue ' deep as eternity, stars of holiest hope, a breeze promis- 
ing rapture in every breath. I could not longer endure this 
discord between myself and such beauty ; I retired within my 
window, and lit the lamp. Its rays fell on an orange tree, 
full clad in its golden fruit and bridal blossoms. How did 
we talk together then, fairest friend ! Thou didst tell me all ; 
and yet thou knowest, that even then, had I asked any part 
of thy dower, it would have been to bear the sweet fruit, 
rather than the sweeter blossoms. My wish had been ex- 
pressed by another. 

' 0, that I were an orange tree, 

That busy plant ! 
Then should I ever laden be, 

And never want 
Some fruit for hirn that dresseth me.' 

Thou didst seem to me the happiest of all spirits in wealth of 
nature, in fulness of utterance. How is it that I find thee now 
in another habitation ? " 

" How is it, man, that thou art now content that thy life 
bears no golden fruit ? " 

" It is," I replied, " that I have at last, through privation, 
been initiated into the secret of peace. Blighted without, 
unable to find myself in other forms of nature, I was driven 
back upon the centre of my being, and there found all being. 
For the wise, the obedient child from one point can draw all 
lines, and in one germ read all the possible disclosures of 
successive life." 

" Even so," replied the flower, " and ever for that reason 
am I trying to simplify my being. How happy I was in the 
* spirit's dower when first it was wed,' I told thee in that 
earlier day. But after a while I grew weary of that fulness 
of speech ; I felt a shame at telling all I knew, and challen- 
ging all sympathies ; I was never silent, I was never alone ; I 



334 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

had a voice for every season, for day and night ; on me the 
merchant counted, the bride looked to me for her garland, 
the nobleman for the chief ornament of his princely hall, 
and the poor man for his wealth ; all sang my praises, all ex- 
tolled my beauty, all blessed my beneficence ; and, for a while, 
my heart swelled with pride and pleasure. But, as years 
passed, my mood changed. The lonely moon rebuked me, as 
she hid from the wishes of man, nor would return till her due 
change was passed. The inaccessible sun looked on me with 
the same ray as on all others ; my endless profusion could not 
bribe him to one smile sacred to me alone. The mysterious 
wind passed me by to tell its secret to the solemn pine, and 
the nightingale sang to the rose rather than me, though she 
was often silent, and buried herself yearly in the dark earth. 

" I knew no mine or thine : I belonged to all. I could never 
rest : I was never at one. Painfully I felt this want, and 
from every blossom sighed entreaties for some being to come 
and satisfy it. With every bud I implored an answer, but 
each bud only produced an orange. 

" At last this feeling grew more painful, and thrilled my 
very root. The earth trembled at the touch with a pulse so 
sympathetic that ever and anon it seemed, could I but retire 
and hide in that silent bosom for one calm winter, all would 
be told me, and tranquillity, deep as my desire, be mine. But 
the law of my being was on me, and man and nature seconded 
it. Ceaselessly they called on me for my beautiful gifts ; they 
decked themselves with them, nor cared to know the saddened 
heart of the giver. O, how cruel they seemed at last, as they 
visited and despoiled me, yet never sought to aid me, or even 
paused to think that I might need their aid! yet I would not 
hate them. I saw it was my seeming riches that bereft me 
of sympathy. I saw they could not know what was hid be- 
neath the perpetual veil of glowing life. I ceased to expect 
aught from them, and turned my eyes to the distant stars. I 
thought, could I but hoard from the daily expenditure of my 
juices till I grew tall enough, I might reach those distant 



THE MAGNOLIA OF LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. 335 

spheres, which looked so silent and consecrated, and there 
pause a while from these weary joys of endless life, and in the 
lap of winter find my spring. 

•• But not so was my hope to be fulfilled. One starlight 
night I was looking, hoping, when a sudden breeze came up. 
It touched me, I thought, as if it were a cold, white beam 
from those stranger worlds. The cold gained upon my heart ; 
every blossom trembled, every leaf grew brittle, and the fruit 
began to seem unconnected with the stem ; soon I lost all 
feeling; and morning found the pride of the garden black, 
Stiff, and powerless. 

" As the rays of the morning sun touched me, consciousness 
returned, and I strove to speak, but in vain. Sealed were 
my fountains, and all my heartbeats still. I felt that I had 
been that beauteous tree, but now only was — what — I knew 
not ; yet I was, and the voices of men said, It is dead ; cast it 
forth, and plant another in the costly vase. A mystic shudder 
of pale joy then separated me wholly from my former abode. 

- A moment more, and I was before the queen and guardian 
of the flowers. Of this being I cannot speak to thee in any 
language now possible betwixt us ; for this is a being of another 
order from thee, an order whose presence thou mayst feel, 
nay, approach step by step, but which cannot be known till thou 
art of it, nor seen nor spoken of till thou hast passed through it. 

" Suffice it to say, that it is not such a being as men love to 
paint ; a fairy, like them, only lesser and more exquisite than 
they ; a goddess, larger and of statelier proportion ; an angel, 
like still, only with an added power. Man never creates ; he 
only recombines the lines and colors of his own existence : only 
a deific fancy could evolve from the elements the form that 
took me home. 

" Secret, radiant, profound ever, and never to be known, 
was she ; many forms indicate, and none declare her. Like 
all such beings, she was feminine. All the secret powers 
are " mothers." There is but one paternal power. 



336 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

" She had heard my wish while I looked at the stars, and 
in the silence of fate prepared its fulfilment. ' Child of my 
most communicative hour,' said she, 'the full pause must not 
follow such a burst of melody. Obey the gradations of na- 
ture, nor seek to retire at once into her utmost purity of 
silence. The vehemence of thy desire at once promises and 
forbids its gratification. Thou wert the keystone of the arch, 
and bound together the circling year : thou canst not at once 
become the base of the arch, the centre of the circle. Take 
a step inward, forget a voice, lose a power ; no longer a boun- 
teous sovereign, become a vestal priestess, and bide thy time 
in the magnolia.' 

" Such is my history, friend of my earlier day. Others of 
my family, that you have met, were formerly the religious 
lily, the lonely dahlia, fearless decking the cold autumn, and 
answering the shortest visits of the sun with the brightest 
hues; the narcissus, so rapt in self-contemplation that it 
could not abide the usual changes of a life. Some of these 
have perfume, others not, according to the habit of their ear- 
lier state ; for, as spirits change, they still bear some trace, a 
faint reminder, of their latest step upwards or inwards. I 
still speak with somewhat of my former exuberance and over- 
ready tenderness to the dwellers on this shore ; but each star 
sees me purer, of deeper thought, and more capable of retire- 
ment into my own heart. Nor shall I again detain a wan- 
derer, luring him from afar ; nor shall I again subject myself 
to be questioned by an alien spirit, to tell the tale of my being 
in words that divide it from itself. Farewell, stranger ! and 
believe that nothing strange can meet me more. I have 
atoned by confession ; further penance needs not ; and I feel 
the Infinite possess me more and more. Farewell ! to meet 
again in prayer, in destiny, in harmony, in elemental power." 

The magnolia left me ; I left not her, but must abide for- 
ever in the thought to which the clew was found in the margin 
of that lake of the South. 



CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH. 

Whoever passes up Broadway finds his attention arrested 
by three line structures — Trinity Church, that of the Messiah, 
and Grace Church. 

His impressions are, probably, at first, of a pleasant charac- 
ter. He looks upon these edifices as expressions, which, how- 
ever inferior in grandeur to the poems in stone which adorn 
the older world, surely indicate that man cannot rest content 
with his short earthly span, but prizes relations to eternity. 
The house in which he pays deference to claims which death 
will not cancel seems to be no less important in his eyes 
than those in which the affairs which press nearest are at- 
tended to. 

So far, so good ! That is expressed which gives man his 
superiority over the other orders of the natural world, that 
consciousness of spiritual affinities of which we see no unequiv- 
ocal signs elsewhere. 

But, if this be something great when compared with the 
rest of the animal creation, yet how little seems it when com- 
pared with the ideal that has been offered to him, as to the 
means of signifying such feelings ! These temples ! how far 
do they correspond with the idea of that religious sentiment 
from which they originally sprung ? In the old world the his- 
tory of such edifices, though not without its shadow, had many 
bright lines. Kings and emperors paid oftentimes for the 
materials and labor a price of blood and plunder, and many a 
wretched sinner sought by contributions of stone for their 
walls to roll off the burden he had laid on his conscience. Still 
the community amid which they rose knew little of these draw- 
29 (337) 



338 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

backs. Pious legends attest the purity of feeling associated 
with each circumstance of their building. Mysterious orders, 
of which we know only that they were consecrated to brother- 
ly love and the development of mind, produced the genius 
which animated the architecture ; but the casting of the bells 
and suspending them in the tower was an act in which all 
orders of the community took part ; for when those cathedrals 
were consecrated, it was for the use of all. Rich and poor 
knelt together upon their marble pavements, and the imperial 
altar welcomed the obscurest artisan. 

This grace our churches want — the grace which belongs to 
all religions, but is peculiarly and solemnly enforced upon the 
followers of Jesus. The poor to whom he came to preach can 
have no share in the grace of Grace Church. In St. Peter's, 
if only as an empty form, the soiled feet of travel-worn disci- 
ples are washed ; but such feet can never intrude on the fane 
of the holy Trinity here in republican America, and the 
Messiah may be supposed still to give as excuse for delay, 
" The poor you always have with you." 

We must confess this circumstance is to us quite destructive 
of reverence and value for these buildings. 

We are told, that at the late consecration, the claims of the 
poor were eloquently urged ; and that an effort is to be made, 
by giving a side chapel, to atone for the luxury which shuts 
them out from the reflection of sunshine through those brilliant 
windows. It is certainly better that they should be offered 
the crumbs from the rich man's table than nothing at all, yet 
it is surely not the way that Jesus would have taught to pro- 
vide for the poor. 

Would we not then have these splendid edifices erected ? 
We certainly feel that the educational influence of good speci- 
mens of architecture (and we know no other argument in 
their favor) is far from being a counterpoise to the abstraction 
of so much money from purposes that would be more in fulfil- 
ment of that Christian idea which these assume to represent. 



CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH. 339 

"Were the rich to build such a church, and, dispensing with 
pews and all exclusive advantages, invite all who would to 
come in to the banquet, that were, indeed, noble and Chris- 
tian. And, though we believe more, for our nation and time, 
in intellectual monuments than those of wood and stone, and. 
in opposition even to our admired Powers, think that Michael 
Angelo himself could have advised no more suitable monu- 
ment to "Washington than a house devoted to the instruc- 
tion of the people, and think that great master, and the 
Greeks no less, would agree with us if they lived now to sur- 
vey all the bearings of the subject, yet we would not object 
to these splendid churches, if the idea of Him they call blas- 
ter were represented in them. But till it is, they can do no 
good, for the means are not in harmony with the end. The 
rich man sits in state while " near two hundred thousand " 
Lazaruses linger, unprovided for, without the gate. "While 
this is so, they must not talk much, within, of Jesus of Naza- 
reth, who called to him fishermen, laborers, and artisans, for 
his companions and disciples. 

"We find some excellent remarks on this subject from Rev. 
Stephen Olin, president of the "Wesleyan University. They 
are appended as a note to a discourse addressed to young 
men, on the text, " Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." 

This discourse, though it discloses formal and external views 
of religious ties and obligations, is dignified by a fervent, gen- 
erous iove for men, and a more than commonly catholic liber- 
ality ; and though these remarks are made and meant to bear 
upon the interests of his own sect, yet they are anti-sectarian 
in their tendency, and worthy the consideration of all anxious 
to understand the call of duty in these matters. Earnest atten- 
tion of this sort will better avail than fifteen hundred dollars, 
or more, paid for a post of exhibition in a fashionable church, 
where, if piety be provided with one chance, worldliness has 
twenty to stare it out of countenance. 



340 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIX. 

" The strong tendency in our religious operations to gather 
the rich and the poor into separate folds, and so to generate and 
establish in the church distinctions utterly at variance with 
the spirit of our political institutions, is the very worst result 
of the multiplication of sects among us; and I fear it must be 
admitted that the evil is greatly aggravated by the otherwise 
benignant working of the voluntary system. Without insisting 
further upon the probable or possible injury which may befall 
our free country from this conflict of agencies, ever the most 
powerful in the formation of national and individual character, 
no one, I am sure, can fail to recognize in this development 
an influence utterly and irreconcilably hostile to the genius 
and cherished objects of Christianity. It is the peculiar glory 
of the gospel that, even under the most arbitrary govern- 
ments, it has usually been able to vindicate and practically ex- 
emplify the essential equality of man. It has had one doc- 
trine and one hope for all its children ; and the highest and 
the lowest have been constrained to acknowledge one holy law 
of brotherhood in the common faith of which they are made 
partakers. Nowhere else, I believe, but in the United States 
— certainly nowhere else to the same extent — does this anti- 
Christian separation of classes prevail in the Christian church. 
The beggar in his tattered vestments walks the splendid courts 
of St. Peter's, and kneels at its costly altars by the side of 
dukes and cardinals. The peasant in his wooden shoes is wel- 
comed in the gorgeous churches of Notre Dame and the Mad- 
eleine ; and even in England, where political and social dis- 
tinctions are more rigorously enforced than in any other 
country on earth, the lord and the peasant, the richest and the 
poorest, are usually occupants of the same church, and par- 
takers of the same communion. That the reverse of all this 
is true in many parts of this country, every observing man 
knows full well; and what is yet more deplorable, while (he 
lines of demarcation between the different classes have already 
become sufficiently distinct, the tendency is receiving new 



CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH. 341 

strength and development in a rapidly augmenting ratio. 
Even in country places, where the population is sparse, and 
the artificial distinctions of society are little known, the work- 
ing of this strange element is, in many instances, made mani- 
fest, and a petty coterie of village magnates may be found 
worshipping God apart from the body of the people. But 
the evil is much more apparent, as well as more deeply seated, 
in our populous towns, where the causes which produce it 
have been longer in operation, and have more fully enjoyed 
the favor of circumstances. In these great centres of wealth, 
intelligence, and influence, the separation between the classes 
is, in many instances, complete, and in many more the pro- 
cess is rapidly progressive. 

" There are crowded religious congregations composed so 
exclusively of the wealthy as scarcely to embrace an indigent 
family or individual ; and the number of such churches, where 
the gospel is never preached to the poor, is constantly increas- 
ing. Rich men, instead of associating themselves with their 
more humble fellow-Christians, where their money as well as 
their influence and counsels are so much needed, usually com- 
bine to erect magnificent churches, in which sittings are too 
expensive for any but people of fortune, and from which their 
less-favored brethren are as effectually and peremptorily ex- 
cluded as if there were dishonor or contagion in their pres- 
ence. A congregation is thus constituted, able, without the 
slightest inconvenience, to bear the pecuniary burdens of 
twenty churches, monopolizing and consigning to comparative 
inactivity intellectual, moral, and material resources, for want 
of which so many other congregations are doomed to struggle 
with the most embarrassing difficulties. Can it for a moment 
be thought that such a state of things. is desirable, or in har- 
mony with the spirit and design of the gospel ? 

" A more difficult question arises when we inquire after a 
remedy for evils too glaring to be overlooked, and too grave 
to be tolerated, without an effort to palliate, if not to remove 
29* 



342 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

them. The most obvious palliative, and one which has already 
been tried to some extent by wealthy churches or individuals, 
is the erection of free places of worship for the poor. Such 
a provision for this class of persons would be more effectual 
in any other part of the world than in the United States. 
Whether it arises from the operation of our political system, 
or from the easy attainment of at least the prime necessaries 
of life, the poorer classes here are characterized by a proud 
spirit, which will not submit to receive even the highest ben- 
efits in any form that implies inferiority or dependence. This 
strong and prevalent feeling must continue to interpose serious 
obstacles in the way of these laudable attempts. If in a few 
instances churches for the poor have succeeded in our large 
cities, where the theory of social equality is so imperfectly 
realized in the actual condition of the people, and where the 
presence of a multitude of indigent foreigners tends to lower 
the sentiment of independence so strong in native-born Ameri- 
cans, the system is yet manifestly incapable of general appli- 
cation to the religious wants of our population. The same 
difficulty usually occurs in all attempts to induce the humbler 
classes to worship with the rich in sumptuous churches, by re- 
serving for their benefit a portion of the sittings free, or at a 
nominal rent. A few only can be found who are willing to be 
recognized and provided for as beneficiaries and paupers, 
while the multitude will always prefer to make great sacri- 
fices in order to provide for themselves in some humbler fane. 
It must be admitted that this subject is beset with practical 
difficulties, which are not likely to be removed speedily, or 
without some great and improbable revolution in our religious 
affairs. Yet if the respectable Christian denominations most 
concerned in the subject shall pursue a wise and liberal policy 
for the future, something may be done to check the evil. 
They may retard its rapid growth, perhaps, though it will 
most likely be found impossible to eradicate it altogether. It 
ought to be well understood, that the multiplication of mag- 



CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH. 343 

nificent churches is daily making the line of demarcation 
between the rich and the poor more and more palpable and 
impassable. There are many good reasons for the erection 
of such edifices. Increasing wealth and civilization seem to 
call for a liberal and tasteful outlay in behalf of religion ; yet 
is it the dictate of prudence no less than of duty to balance 
carefully the good and the evil of every enterprise. It should 
ever be kept in mind, that such a church virtually writes above 
its sculptured portals an irrevocable prohibition to the poor— 
1 Procul, procul este profani.' " 



LATE ASPIRATION S. 

Letter to H . 

You have put to me that case which puzzles more than 
almost any in this strange world — the case of a man of 
good intentions, with natural powers sufficient to carry them 
out, who, after having through great part of a life lived the 
best he knew, and, in the world's eye, lived admirably well, 
suddenly wakes to a consciousness of the soul's true aims. 
He finds that he has been a good son, husband, and father, 
an adroit man of business, respected by all around him, with- 
out ever having advanced one step in the life of the soul. 
His object has not been the development of his immortal 
being, nor has this been developed ; all he has done bears 
upon the present life only, and even that in a way poor and 
limited, since no deep fountain of intellect or feeling has 
ever been unsealed for him. Now that his eyes are opened, 
he sees what communion is possible ; what incorruptible 
riches may be accumulated by the man of true wisdom. 
But why is the hour of clear vision so late deferred ? 
He cannot blame himself for his previous blindness. His 
eyes were holden that he saw not. He lived as well as 
he knew how. 

And now that he would fain give himself up to the new 
oracle in his bosom, and to the inspirations of nature, all his 
old habits, all his previous connections, are unpropitious. He 
is bound by a thousand chains which press on him so as to 
leave no moment free. And perhaps it seems to him that, 
were he free, he should but feel the more forlorn. He sees 

(344) 



LATE ASPIRATIONS. 345 

the charm and nobleness of this new life, but knows not how 
to live it. It is an element to which his mental frame has 
not been trained. He knows not what to do to-day or to- 
morrow ; how to stay by himself, or how to meet others ; how 
to act, or how to rest. Looking on others who chose the path 
which now invites him at an age when their characters were 
yet plastic, and the world more freely opened before them, he 
deems them favored children, and cries in almost despairing 
sadness, Why, O Father of Spirits, didst thou not earlier 
enlighten me also ? Why was I not led gently by the hand 
in the days of my youth ? " And what," you ask, " could I 
reply ? " 

Much, much, dear H , were this a friend whom I could 

see so often that his circumstances would be my text. For 
no subject has more engaged my thoughts, no difficulty is 
more frequently met. But now on this poor sheet I can only 
give you the clew to what I should say. 

In the first place, the depth of the despair must be caused 
by the mistaken idea that this our present life is all the time 
allotted to man for the education of his nature for that state 
of consummation which is called heaven. Were it seen that 
this present is only one little link in the long chain of proba- 
tions ; were it felt that the Divine Justice is pledged to give 
the aspirations of the soul all the time they require for their 
fulfilment ; were it recognized that disease, old age, and death 
are circumstances which can never touch the eternal youth 
of the spirit ; that though the " plant man " grows more or less 
fair in hue and stature, according to the soil in which it is 
planted, yet the principle, which is the life of the plant, will 
not be defeated, but must scatter its seeds again and again, 
till it does at last come to perfect flower, — then would he, 
who is pausing to despair, realize that a new choice can 
never be too late, that false steps made in ignorance can 
never be counted by the All- Wise, and that, though a 
moment's delay against conviction is of incalculable weight, 



346 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN*. 

the mistakes of forty years are bat as dust on the balance 
held by an unerring hand. Despair is for time, hope for 
eternity. 

Then he who looks at all at the working of the grand prin- 
ciple of compensation which holds all nature in equipoise, 
cannot long remain a stranger to the meaning of the beautiful 
parable of the prodigal son, and the joy over finding the one 
lost piece of silver. It is no arbitrary kindness, no generosity 
of the ruling powers, which causes that there be more joy in 
heaven over the one that returns, than over ninety and nine 
that never strayed. It is the inevitable working of a spir- 
itual law that he who has been groping in darkness must feel 
the light most keenly, best know how to prize it — he who 
has long been exiled from the truth seize it with the most 
earnest grasp, live in it with the deepest joy. It was after 
descending to the very pit of sorrow, that our Elder Brother 
was permitted to ascend to the Father, who perchance said 
to the angels who had dwelt always about the throne, Ye 
are always with me, and all that I have is yours ; but this 
is my Son ; he has been into a far country, but could not 
there abide, and has returned. But if any one say, " I know 
not how to return," I should still use words from the same 
record : " Let him arise and go to his Father." Let him 
put his soul into that state of simple, fervent desire for truth 
alone, truth for its own sake, which is prayer, and not only 
the sight of truth, but the way to make it living, shall be 
shown. Obstacles, insuperable to the intellect of any ad- 
viser, shall melt away like frostwork before a ray from the 
celestial sun. The Father may hide his face for a time, 
till the earnestness of the suppliant child be proved; but 
he is not far from any that seek, and when he does re- 
solve to make a revelation, will show not only the wJiat, 
but the how ; and none else can advise or aid the seek- 
ing soul, except by just observation on some matter of 
detail. 



LATE ASPIRATIONS. 347 

In this path, as in the downward one, must there be the 
first step that decides the whole — one sacrifice of the tem- 
poral for the eternal day is the grain of mustard seed which 
may give birth to a tree large enough to make a home for 
the sweetest singing birds. One moment of deep truth in 
life, of choosing not merely honesty, but purity, may leaven 
the whole mass. 



FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS FROM MARGARET 
FULLER'S JOURNAL. 

I gave the world the fruit of earlier hours : 
O Solitude ! reward me with some flowers ; 
Or if their odorous bloom thou dost deny, 
Rain down some meteors from the winter sky ! 

Poesy. — The expression of the sublime and beautiful, 
whether in measured words or in the fine arts. The human 
mind, apprehending the harmony of the universe, and making 
new combinations by its laws. 

Poetry. — The sublime and beautiful expressed in measured 
language. It is closely allied with the fine arts. It should 
sing to the ear, paint to the eye, and exhibit the symmetry of 
architecture. If perfect, it will satisfy the intellectual and 
moral faculties no less than the heart and the senses. It 
works chiefly by simile and melody. It is to prose as the 
garden to the house. Pleasure is the object of the one, con- 
venience of the other. The flowers and fruits may be copied 
on the furniture of the house, but if their beauty be not sub- 
ordinated to utility, they lose the charm of beauty, and de- 
generate into finery. The reverse is the case in the garden. 

Nature'. — I would praise alike the soft gray and brown 
which soothed my eye erewhile, and the snowy fretwork which 
now decks the forest aisles. Every ripple in the snowy 
fields, every grass and fern which raises its petrified delicacy 
above them, seems to me to claim a voice. A voice ! Canst 
thou not silently adore, but must needs be doing ? Art thou 
too good to wait as a beggar at the door of the great temple ? 

(348) 



FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS. 349 

Woman — Man. — Woman is the flower, man the bee. 
She sighs out melodious fragrance, and invites the winged 
laborer. He drains her cup, and carries off the honey. She 
dies on the stalk ; he returns to the hive, well fed, and praised 
as an active member of the community. 

Action symbolical of what is within. — Goethe says, "I 
have learned to consider all I do as symbolical, — so that it 
now matters little to me whether I make plates or dishes." 
And further, he says, " All manly effort goes from within 
outwards." 

Opportunity fleeting. — I held in my hand the cup. It was 
full of hot liquid. The air was cold ; I delayed to drink, and 
its vital heat, its soul, curled upwards in delicatest wreaths. 
I looked delighted on their beauty ; but while I waited, the 
essence of the draught was wasted on the cold air : it would 
not wait for me; it longed too much to utter itself: and 
when my lip was ready, only a flat, worthless sediment re- 
mained of what had been. 

Mingling of the heavenly with the earthly. — The son of 
the gods has sold his birthright. He has received in ex- 
change one, not merely the fairest, but the sweetest and holi- 
est of earth's daughters. Yet is it not a fit exchange. His 
pinions droop powerless ; he must no longer soar amid the 
golden stars. No matter, he thinks ; "I will take her to some 
green and flowery isle ; I will pay the penalty of Adam for 
the sake of the daughter of Eve ; I will make the earth 
fruitful by the sweat of my brow. No longer my hands shall 
bear the coal to the lips of the inspired singer — no longer 
my voice modulate its tones to the accompaniment of spheral 
harmonies. My hands now lift the clod of the valley which 
dares cling to them with brotherly familiarity. And for my 
soiling, dreary task-work all the day, I receive — food. 
30 



350 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

" But the smile with which she receives me at set of sun, 
is it not worth all that sun has seen me endure? Can angelic 
delights surpass those which I possess, when, facing the shore 
with her, watched by the quiet moon, we listen to the tide of 
the world surging up impatiently against the Eden it cannot 
conquer? Truly the joys of heaven were gregarious and 
low in comparison. This, this alone, is exquisite, because 
exclusive and peculiar." 

Ah, seraph ! but the winter's frost must nip thy vine ; a 
viper lurks beneath the flowers to sting the foot of thy child, 
and pale decay must steal over the cheek thou dost adore. 
In the realm of ideas all was imperishable. Be blest while 
thou canst. I love thee, fallen seraph, but thou shouldst not 
have sold thy birthright. 

" All for love and the world well lost." That sounds so 
true ! But genius, when it sells itself, gives up, not only the 
world, but the universe. 

Yet does not love comprehend the universe? The uni- 
verse is love. Why should I weary my eye with scanning 
the parts, when I can clasp the whole this moment to my 
beating heart ? 

But if the intellect be repressed, the idea will never be 
brought out from the feeling. The amaranth wreath will 
in thy grasp be changed to one of roses, more fragrant in- 
deed, but withering with a single sun ! 

Tlie Crisis ivith Gcetlie. — I have thought much whether 
Gcethe did well in giving up Lili. That was the crisis in his 
existence. From that era dates his being as a " Weltweise ; " 
the heroic element vanished irrecoverably from his character ; 
he became an Epicurean and a Realist; plucking flowers and 
hammering stones instead of looking at the stars. How 
could he look through the blinds, and see her sitting alone in 
her beauty, yet give her up for so slight reasons ? He was 
right as a genius, but wrong as a character. 



FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS. 351 

TJie Flower and the Pearl. has written wonders 

about the mystery of personality. Why do we love it ? In 
the first place, each wishes to embrace a whole, and this seems 
the readiest way. The intellect soars, the heart clasps ; from 
putting " a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes," 
thou wouldst return to thy own little green isle of emotion, 
and be the loving and playful fay, rather than the delicate 
Ariel. 

Then most persons are plants, organic. We can predict 
their growth according to their own law. From the young 
girl we can predict the lustre, the fragrance of the future 
flower. It waves gracefully to the breeze, the dew rests upon 
its petals, the bee busies himself in them, and flies away after 
a brief rapture, richly laden. 

When it fades, its leaves fall softly on the bosom of Mother 
Earth, to all whose feelings it has so closely conformed. It 
has lived as a part of nature ; its life was music, and we open 
our hearts to the melody. 

But characters like thine and mine are mineral. We are 
the bone and sinew, these the smiles and glances, of earth. 
We lie nearer the mighty heart, and boast an existence more 
enduring than they. The sod lies heavy on us, or, if we show 
ourselves, the melancholy moss clings to us. If we are to be 
made into palaces and temples, we must be hewn and chis- 
elled by instruments of unsparing sharpness. The process 
is mechanical and un pleasing ; the noises which accompany it, 
discordant and obtrusive ; the artist is surrounded with rub- 
bish. Yet we may be polished to marble smoothness. In 
our veins may lie the diamond, the ruby, perhaps the em- 
blematic carbuncle. 

The flower is pressed to the bosom with intense emotion, 
but in the home of love it withers and is cast away. 

The gem is worn with less love, but with more pride ; if 
we enjoy its sparkle, the joy is partly from calculation of its 
value ; but if it be lost, we regret it long. 



352 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

For myself, my name is Pearl.* That lies at the begin- 
ning, amid slime and foul prodigies from which only its un- 
sightly shell protects. It is cradled and brought to its noblest 
state amid disease and decay. Only the experienced diver 
could have known that it was there, and brought it to the 
strand, where it is valued as pure, round, and, if less brilliant 
than the diamond, yet an ornament for a kingly head. Were 
it again immersed in the element where first it dwelt, now 
that it is stripped of the protecting shell, soon would it blacken 
into deformity. So what is noblest in my soul has sprung 
from disease, present defeat, disappointment, and untoward 
outward circumstance. 

For you, I presume, from your want of steady light and 
brilliancy of sparks which are occasionally struck from you, 
that you are either a flint or a rough diamond. If the former, 
I hope you will find a home in some friendly tinder-box, 
instead of lying in the highway to answer the hasty hoof of 
the trampling steed. If a diamond, I hope to meet you in 
some imperishable crown, where we may long remain together ; 
you lighting up my pallid orb, I tempering your blaze. 

Dried Ferris about my Lamp-shade. — "What pleasure do 
you, who have exiled those paper tissue covers, take in that 
bouquet of dried ferns ? Their colors are less bright, and their 
shapes less graceful, than those of your shades." 

I answer, " They grew beneath the solemn pines. They 
opened their hearts to the smile of summer, and answered to 
" the sigh of autumn. They remind me of the wealth of nature ; 
the tissues, of the poverty of man. They were gathered by 
a cherished friend who worships in the woods, and behind 
them lurks a deep, enthusiastic eye. So my pleasure in see- 
ing them is ' denkende ' and ' menschliche. ' " 

u They are of no use." 

" Good ! I like useless things : they are to me the vouchers 
of a different state of existence." 

[* Margaret means Pearl. — Ed.] 



FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS. 353 

Light. — My lamp says to me, " Why do you disdain me, 
and use that candle, which you have the trouble of snuffing 
every five minutes, and which ever again grows dim, ungrate- 
ful for your care ? I would burn steadily from sunset to mid- 
night, and be your faithful, vigilant friend, yet never interrupt 
you an instant." 

I reply, " But your steady light is also dull, — while his, at 
its best, is both brilliant and mellow. Besides, I love him for 
the trouble he gives ; he calls on my sympathy, and admon- 
ishes me constantly to use my life, which likewise nickers as 
if near the socket." 

Wit and Satire. — I cannot endure people who do not dis- 
tinguish between wit and satire ; who think you, of course, 
laugh at people when you laugh about them ; and who have 
no perception of the peculiar pleasure derived from toying 
with lovely or tragic figures. 
30* 



FAREWELL* 

Farewell to New York city, where twenty months have 
presented me with a richer and more varied exercise for 
thought and life, than twenty years could in any other part, 
of these United States. 

It is the common remark about New York, that it has at 
least nothing petty or provincial in its methods and habits. 
The place is large enough : there is room enough, and occu- 
pation enough, for men to have no need or excuse for small 
cavils or scrutinies. A person who is independent, and knows 
what he wants, may lead his proper life here, unimpeded by 
others. 

Vice and crime, if flagrant and frequent, are less thickly 
coated by hypocrisy than elsewhere. The air comes some- 
times to the most infected subjects. 

New York is the focus, the point where American and 
European interests converge. There is no topic of general 
interest ft) men, that will not betimes be brought before the 
thinker by the quick turning of the wheel. 

Too quick that revolution, — some object. Life rushes 
wide and free, but too fast. Yet it is in the power of every 
one to avert from himself the evil that accompanies the good. 
He must build for his study, as did the German poet, a house 
beneath the bridge ; and then all that passes above and by him 
will be heard and seen, but he will not be carried away 
with it. 

Earlier views have been confirmed, and many new ones 

[* Published in the New York Tribune, Aug. 1, 1846, just previous to 
sailing for Europe. — Ed.] 

(354) 



FAREWELL. 355 

opened. On two great leadings, the superlative importance 
of promoting national education by heightening and deepening 
the cultivation of individual minds, and the part which is 
assigned to woman in the next stage of human progress in 
this country, where most important achievements are to be 
effected, I have received much encouragement, much instruc- 
tion, and the fairest hopes of more. 

On various subjects of minor importance, no less than these, 
I hope for good results, from observation, with my own eyes, 
of life in the old world, and to bring home some packages of 
seed for life in the new. 

These words I address to my friends, for I feel that I have 
some. The degree of sympathetic response to the thoughts 
and suggestions I have offered through the columns of the 
Tribune, has indeed surprised me, conscious as I am of a 
natural and acquired aloofness from many, if not most popular 
tendencies of my time and place. It has greatly encouraged 
me, for none can sympathize with thoughts like mine, who 
are permanently insnared in the meshes of sect or party; 
none who prefer the formation and advancement of mere 
opinions to the free pursuit of truth. I see, surely, that the 
topmost bubble or sparkle of the cup is no voucher for the 
nature of its contents throughout, and shall, in future, feel that 
in our age, nobler in that respect than most of the preceding 
ages, each sincere and fervent act or word is secure, not only 
of a final, but of a speedy response. 

I go to behold the wonders of art, and the temples of old 
religion. But I shall see no forms of beauty and majesty 
beyond what my country is capable of producing in myriad 
variety, if she has but the soul to will it ; no temple to com- 
pare with what she might erect in the ages, if the catchword 
of the time, a sense of divine order, should become no more 
a mere word of form, but a deeply-rooted and pregnant idea 
in her life. Beneath the light of a hope that this may be, I 
Bay to my friends once more a kind farewell ! 



PAET III. 

POEMS. 



FREEDOM AND TRUTH. 

TO A FRIEND. 

Tiie shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend, 
Freedom is but a means to gain an end. 
Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine 
Be consecrate to thought still more divine. 
The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw 
Is liberty to comprehend the law. 
Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame, 
Comprising means and end in Truth's great name. 



DESCRIPTION OF A PORTION OF THE JOUR- 
NEY TO TRENTON FALLS. 

The long-anticipated morning dawns, 

Clear, hopeful, joyous-eyed, and pure of breath. 

The dogstar is exhausted of its rage, 

And copious showers have cooled the feverish air, 

The mighty engine pants — away, away ! 

(357) 



358 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

And, see! they come! a motley, smiling group — 

The stately matron with her tempered grace, 

Her earnest eye, and kind though meaning smile, 

Her words of wisdom and her words of mirth. 

Her counsel firm and generous sympathy ; 

The happy pair whose hearts so full, yet ever 

Dilating to the scene, refuse that bliss 

Which excludes the whole or blunts the sense of beauty. 

Next two fair maidens in gradation meet, 

The one of gentle mien and soft dove-eyes ; 

Like water she, that yielding and combining, 

Yet most pure element in the social cup : 

The other with bright glance and damask cheek, 

You need not deem concealment there was preying 

To mar the healthful promise of the spring. 

Another dame was there, of graver look, 

And heart of slower beat ; yet in its depths 

Not irresponsive to the soul of things, 

Nor cold when charmed by those who knew its pass-word. 

These ladies had a knight from foreign clime, 

Who from the banks of the dark-rolling Danube, 

Or somewhere thereabouts, had come, a pilgrim, 

To worship at the shrine of Liberty, 

And after, made his home in her loved realm, 

Content to call it fatherland where'er 

The streams bear freemen and the skies smile on them ; 

A courteous knight he was, of merry mood, 

Expert to wing the lagging hour with jest, 

Or tale of strange romance or comic song. 

And there was one I must not call a page, 
Although too young yet to have won his spurs ; 
Yet there was promise in his laughing eye, 



859 



That in due time he'd prove no carpet knight ; 
Now, bright companion on a summer sea, 
With winged words of gay or tasteful thought, 
He was fit clasp to this our social chain. 

And now, the swift car loosened on its way, 
O'er hill and dale we fly with rapid lightness. 
While each tongue celebrates the power of steam ; 
O, how delightful 'tis to go so fast ! 
No time to muse, no chance to gaze on nature ! 
'Tis bliss indeed if " to think be to groan ! " 

The genius of the time soon shifts the scene : 

No longer whirled over our kindred clods, 

We, with as strong an impulse, cleave the waters. 

Now doth our chain a while untwine its links, 

And some rebound from a three hours' communion 

To mingle with less favored fellow-men ; 

One careless turns the leaves of some new volume ; 

The leaves of Nature's book are too gigantic, 

Too vast the characters for patient study, 

Till sunset lures us with majestic power 

To cast one look of love on that bright eye, 

Which, for so many hours, has beamed on us. 

The silver lamp is lit in the blue dome, 

Nature begins her hymn of evening breezes, 

And myriad sparks, thronging to kiss the wave, 

Touch even the steamboat's clumsy hulk with beauty. 

Then, once more drawn together, cheerful talk 

Casts to the hours a store of gentle gifts, 

Which memory receives from these bright minds 

And careful garners them for duller days. 

The morning greets us not with her late smile ; 
Now chilling damp falls heavy on our hopes, 



360 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

And leaden hues tarnish each sighed-for scene. 
Yet not on coloring, majestic Hudson, 
Depends the genius of thy stream, whose wand 
Has piled thy banks on high, and given them forms 
Which have for taste an impulse yet unknown. 
Though Beauty dwells here, she reigns not a queen, 
An humble handmaid now to the Sublime. 
The mind dilates to receive the idea of strength, 
And tasks its elements for congenial forms 
To create anew within those mighty piles, 
Those "bulwarks of the world," which, time-defying 
And thunder-mocking, lift their lofty brows. 

Now at the river's bend we pause a while, 

And sun and cloud combine their wealth to greet us. 

Oft shall the fair scenes of West Point return 

Upon the mind, in its still picture-hours, 

Its cloud-capped mountains with their varying hues, 

The soft seclusion of its wooded paths, 

And the alluring hopefulness of view 

Along the river from its crisis-point. 

Unlike the currents of our human lives 

When they approach their long-sought ocean-mother, - 

This stream is noblest onward to its close, 

More tame and grave when near its inland founts. 

Now onward, onward, till the whole be known ; 

The heart, though swollen with these new sensations, 

With no less vital throb beats on for more, 

And rather we'd shake hands with disappointment 

Than wait and lean on sober expectation. 

The Highlands now are passed, and Hyde Park flies, - 

Catskill salutes us — a far fairy-land. 

O mountains, how do ye delude our hearts ! 

Let but the eye look down upon a valley, 



361 



We feel our limitations, and are calm ; 

But place blue mountains in the distant view, 

And the soul labors with the Titan hope 

To ascend the shrouded tops, and scale the heavens. 

O, pause not in the murky, old Dutch city, 
But, hasting onward with a renewed steam power, 
Bestow your hours upon the beauteous Mohawk ; 
And here we grieve to lose our courteous knight, 
Just at the opening of so rich a page. 

How shall I praise thee, Mohawk ? Plow portray 
The love, the joyousness, felt in thy presence ? 
When each new step along the silvery tide 
Added new gems of beauty to our thought, 
And lapped the soul in an Elysium 
Of verdure and of grace, fed by thy sweetness. 
O, how gay Fancy smiled, and deemed it home ! 
This is, thought she, the river of my garden ; 
These are the graceful trees that form its bowers, 
And these the meads where I have sighed to roam. 
I now may fold my wearied wings in peace. 



JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS. 
I. 

TO MY FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

If this faint reflex from those days so bright 
May aught of sympathy among you gain, 
I shall not think these verses penned in vain ; 

Though they tell nothing of the fancies light, 
31 



362 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

The kindly deeds, rich thoughts, and various grace 
With which you knew to make the hours so fair, 

That neither grief nor sickness could efface 
From memory's tablet what you printed there. 
Could I have breathed your spirit through these line^ 

They might have charms to win a critic's smile, 

Or the cold worldling of a sigh beguile. 
I could but from my being bring one tone ; 
May it arouse the sweetness of your own. 



THE HIGHLANDS. 

I saw ye first, arrayed in mist and cloud ; 

No cheerful lights softened your aspect bold ; 

A sullen gray, or green, more grave and cold, 
The varied beauties of the scene enshroud. 
Yet not the less, O Hudson ! calm and proud, 

Did I receive the impress of that hour 

Which showed thee to me, emblem of that power 
Of high resolve, to which even rocks have bowed ; 

Thou wouldst not deign thy course to turn aside, 
And seek some smiling valley's welcome warm, 

But through the mountain's very heart, thy pride 
Has been, thy channel and thy banks to form. 

Not even the " bulwarks of the world " could bar 

The inland fount from joining ocean's war ! 

in. 

CATSKILL. 

How fair at distance shone yon silvery blue, 
O stately mountain-tops, charming the mind 
To dream of pleasures which she there may find, 

Where from the eagle's height she earth can view ! 



poems. 363 

Nor are those disappointments which ensue ; 

For though, while eyeing what beneath us lay, 

Almost we shunned to think of yesterday, 
As wonderingly our looks its course pursue. 

Dwarfed to a point the joys of many hours, 
The river on whose bosom we were borne 
Seems but a thread, of pride and beauty shorn ; 

Its banks, its shadowy groves, like beds of flowers, 
"Wave their diminished heads ; — yet would we sigh, 
Since all this loss shows us more near the sky ? 

IV. 

VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK. 

Could I my words with gentlest grace imbue, 

"Which the flute's breath, or harp's clear tones, can bless, 
I then might hope the feelings to express, 

And with new life the happy day endue, 

Thou gav'st, O vale, than Tempe's self more fair ! 

"With thy romantic stream and emerald isles, 

Touched by an April mood of tears and smiles 
Which stole on matron August unaware ; 

The meads with all the spring's first freshness green, 
The trees with summer's thickest garlands crowned, 

And each so elegant, that fairy queen 

All day might wander ere she chose her round ; 

No blemish on the sense of beauty broke, 

But the whole scene one ecstasy awoke. 

V. 

TRENTON FALLS, EARLY IN THE MORNING. 

The sun, impatient, o'er the lofty trees 
Struggles to illume as fair a sight as lies 
Beneath the light of his joy-loving eyes, 

Which all the forms of energy must please ; 



364 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

A solemn shadow falls in pillared form, 
Made by yon ledge, which noontide scarcely shows, 

Upon the amber radiance, soft and warm, 
Where through the cleft the eager torrent flows. 

Would you the genius of the place enjoy, 
In all the charms contrast and color give ? 

Your eye and taste you now may best employ, 
For this the hour when minor beauties live ; 

Scan ye the details as the sun rides high, 

For with the morn these sparkling glories fly. 

VI. 

TRENTON FALLS, (AFTERNOON.) 

A calmer grace o'er these still hours presides ; 

Now is the time to see the might of form ; 
The heavy masses of the buttressed sides, 

The stately steps o'er which the waters storm ; 
Where, 'neath the mill, the stream so gently glides, 

You feel the deep seclusion of the scene, 

And now begin to comprehend what mean 
The beauty and the power this chasm hides. 
From the green forest's depths the portent springs, 

But from those quiet shades bounding away, 

Lays bare its being to the light of day, 
Though on the rock's cold breast its love it flings. 

Yet can all sympathy such courage miss ? 

Answer, ye trees ! who bend the waves to kiss. 

VII. 

TRENTON FALLS BY MOONLIGHT. 

I deemed the inmost sense my soul had blessed 
Which in the poem of thy being dwells, 
And gives such store for thought's most sacred cells 

And yet a higher joy was now confessed. 



poems. 365 

"With what a holiness did night invest 

The eager impulse of impetuous life, 

And hymn-like meanings clothed the waters' strife ! 
With what a solemn peace the moon did rest 

Upon the white crest of the waterfall ; 
The haughty guardian banks, by the deep shade, 
In almost double height are now displayed. 

Depth, height, speak things which awe, but not appall. 
From elemental powers this voice has come, 
And God's love answers from the azure dome. 



SUB ROSA, CRUX. 

In times of old, as we are told, 
When men more child-like at the feet 
Of Jesus sat, than now, 
A chivalry was known more bold 
Than ours, and yet of stricter vow, 
Of worship more complete. 

Knights of the Rosy Cross, they bore 

Its weight within the heart, but wore 
"Without, devotion's sign in glistening ruby bright ; 

The gall and vinegar they drank alone, 

But to the world at large would only own 
The wine of faith, sparkling with rosy light. 

They knew the secret of the sacred oil 

Which, poured upon the prophet's head, 
Could keep him w T ise and pure for aye. 

Apart from all that might distract or soil, 

With this their lamps they fed, 
Which burn in their sepulchral shrines unfading night and day. 
31* 



366 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

The pass-word now is lost, 
To that initiation full and free ; 

Daily we pay the cost 
Of our slow schooling for divine degree. 
We know no means to feed an undying lamp ; 
Our lights go out in every wind or damp. 

We wear the cross of ebony and gold, 
Upon a dark background a form of light, 

A heavenly hope upon a bosom cold, 
A starry promise in a frequent night ; 

The dying lamp must often trim again, 

For we are conscious, thoughtful, striving men. 

Yet be we faithful to this present trust, 
Clasp to a heart resigned the fatal must ; 
Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold, 
Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold ; 
Forget not oft to lift the hope on high ; 
The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky. 

And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed, 

The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed, 

Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand, 

The kindred angels of a faithful band ; 

Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside, 

No lamp is needed, for the night has died. 

Happy be those who seek that distant day, 
With feet that from the appointed way 

Could never stray ; 
Yet happy too be those who more and more, 
As gleams the beacon of that only shore, 

Strive at the laboring oar. 



poems. 367 

Be to the best thou knowest ever true, 

Is all the creed ; 
Then, be thy talisman of rosy hue, 

Or fenced with thorns that wearing thou must bleed, 
Or gentle pledge of Love's prophetic view, 

The faithful steps it will securely lead. 

Happy are all who reach that shore, 

And bathe in heavenly day, 
Happiest are those who high the banner bore. 

To marshal others on the way ; 
Or waited for them, fainting and way-worn, 
By burdens overborne. 



THE DAHLIA, THE ROSE, AND THE HELIO- 
TROPE. 

In a fair garden of a distant land, 

Where autumn skies the softest blue outspread, 
A lovely crimson dahlia reared her head, 

To drink the lustre of the season's prime; 
And drink she did, until her cup o'erflowed 
With ruby redder than the sunset cloud. 

Near to her root she saw the fairest rose 

That ever oped her soul to sun and wind, 
And still the more her sweets she did disclose, 

The more her queenly heart of sweets did find, 

Not only for her worshipper the wind, 
But for bee, nightingale, and butterfly, 
Who would with ceaseless wing about her ply, 

Nor ever cease to seek what found they still would find. 



368 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Upon the other side, nearer the ground, 
A paler floweret on a slender stem, 

That cast so exquisite a fragrance round, 
As seemed the minute blossom to contemn, 

Seeking an ampler urn to hold its sweetness, 

And in a statelier shape to find completeness. 

"Who could refuse to hear that keenest voice, 
Although it did not bid the heart rejoice, 
And though the nightingale had iust begun 
His hymn ; the evening breeze begun to woo, 
When through the charming of the evening dew, 
The floweret did its secret soul disclose ? 
By that revealing touched, the queenly rose 
Forgot them both, a deeper joy to hope 
And heed the love-note of the heliotrope. 



TO MY FRIENDS. 

TRANSLATED FROM SCHILLER. 

Beloved friends ! Earth hath known brighter days 

Than ours ; we vainly strive to hide this truth ; 
Would history be silent in their praise, 

The very stones tell of man's glorious youth, 
In heavenly forms on which we crowd to gaze ; 

But that high-favored race hath sunk in night ; 

The day is ours — the living still have sight. 

Friends of my youth! In happier climes than ours, 
As some far-wandering countrymen declare, 

The air is perfume ; at each step spring flowers. 
Nature has not been bounteous to our prayer ; 



369 



But art dwells here, with her creative powers, 
Laurel and myrtle shun our winter snows, 
But with the cheerful vine we wreathe our brows. 

Though of more pomp and wealth the Briton boast, 
Who holds four worlds in tribute to his pride, — 

Although from farthest India's glowing coast 

Come gems of gold to burden Thames' dull tide, 
And bring each luxury that Heaven denied, — 

Not in the torrent, but the still, calm brook, 

Delights Apollo at himself to look. 

More nobly lodged than we in northern halls, 
At Angelo's gate the Roman beggar dwells ; 

Girt by the Eternal City's honored walls, 
Each column some soul-stiring story tells ; 

While on the earth a second heaven dwells, 
Where Michael's spirit to St. Peter calls ; 

Yet all this splendor only decks a tomb ; 

For us fresh flowers from every green hour bloom 

And while we live obscure, may others' names 
Through Rumor's trump be given to the wind; 

New forms of ancient glories, ancient shames, 
For nothing new the searching sun can find, 
As pass the motley groups of human kind ; 

All other living things grow old and die — 

Fancy alone has immortality. 



370 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 



STANZAS. 

WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN. 
I. 

Come, breath of dawn! and o'er my temples play; 

Rouse to the draught of life the wearied sense ; 
Fly, sleep ! with thy sad phantoms, far away ; 

Let the glad light scare those pale troublous shadows hence ! 

II. 
I rise, and leaning from my casement high, 

Feel from the morning twilight a delight; 
Once more youth's portion, hope, lights up my eye, 

And for a moment I forget the sorrows of the night. 

III. 

glorious morn! how great is yet thy power! 
Yet how unlike to that which once I knew, 

When, plumed with glittering thoughts, my soul would soar, 
And pleasures visited my heart like daily dew ! 

IV. 
Gone is life's primal freshness all too soon ; 
For me the dream is vanished ere my time ; 

1 feel the heat and weariness of noon, 

And long in night's cool shadows to recline. 



POEMS. 371 



FLAXMAN. 



"We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, 
Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, 
And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought 

Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone — 

A higher charm than modern culture won, 
With all the wealth of metaphysic lore, 
Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore. 

A many-colored light flows from our sun ; 

Art, 'neath its beams, a motley thread has spun ; 
The prison modifies the perfect day ; 

But thou hast known such mediums to shun, 
And cast once more on life a pure white ray. 

Absorbed in the creations of thy mind, 

Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find. 



THOUGHTS 

ON SUNDAY MORNING, WHEN PREVENTED BY A SNOW 
STORM FROM GOING TO CHURCH. 

Hark ! the church-going bell ! But through the air 
The feathery missiles of old Winter hurled, 
Offend the brow of mild-approaching Spring ; 
She shuts her soft blue eyes, and turns away. 
Sweet is the time passed in the house of prayer, 
When, met with many of this fire-fraught clay, 
We, on this day, — the tribe of ills forgot, 



872 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Wherewith, ungentle, we afflict each other, — 

Assemble in the temple of our God, 

And use our breath to worship Him who gave it. 

What though no gorgeous relies of old days, 

The gifts of humbled kings and suppliant warriors, 

Deck the fair shrine, or cluster round the pillars ; 

No stately windows decked with various hues, 

No blazon of dead saints repel the sun ; 

Though no cloud-courting dome or sculptured frieze 

Excite the fancy and allure the taste, 

No fragrant censor steep the sense in luxury, 

No lofty chant swell on the vanquished soul. 

Ours is the faith of Reason ; to the earth 

We leave the senses who interpret her ; 

The heaven-born only should commune with Heaven, 

The immaterial with the infinite. 

Calmly we wait in solemn expectation. 

He rises in the desk — that earnest man ; 

No priestly terrors flashing from his eye, 

No mitre towers above the throne of thought, 

No pomp and circumstance wait on his breath. 

He speaks — we hear; and man to man we judge. 

Has he the spell to touch the founts of feeling 

To kindle in the mind a pure ambition, 

Or soothe the aching heart with heavenly balm, 

To guide the timid and refresh the weary, 

Appall the wicked and abash the proud ? 

He is the man of God. Our hearts confess him. 

He needs no homage paid in servile forms, 

No worldly state, to give him dignity : 

To his own heart the blessing will return, 

And all his days blossom with love divine. 

There is a blessing in the Sabbath woods, 
There is a holiness in the blue skies ; 



poems. 373 

The summer-murmurs to those calm blue skies 

Preach ceaselessly. The universe is love — 

And this disjointed fragment of a world 

Must, by its spirit, man, be harmonized, 

Tuned to concordance with the spheral strain, 

Till thought be like those skies, deeds like those breezes, 

As clear, as bright, as pure, as musical, 

And all things have one text of truth and beauty. 

There is a blessing in a day like this, 
When sky and earth are talking busily; 
The clouds give back the riches they received, 
And for their graceful shapes return they fulness ; 
While in the inmost shrine, the life of life, 
The soul within the soul, the consciousness 
Whom I can only name, counting her wealth, 
Still makes it more, still fills the golden bowl 
Which never shall be broken, strengthens still 
The silver cord which binds the whole to Heaven. 

that such hours must pass away ! yet oft 
Such will recur, and memories of this 

Come to enhance their sweetness. And again 

1 say, great is the blessing of that hour 
When the soul, turning from without, begins 
To register her treasures, the bright thoughts, 
The lovely hopes, the ethereal desires, 
Which she has garnered in past Sabbath hours. 
Within her halls the preacher's voice still sounds, 
Though he be dead or distant far. The band 

Of friends who with us listened to his word, 
With throngs around of linked associations, 
Are there ; the little stream, long left behind, 
Is murmuring still ; the woods as musical ; 
The skies how blue, the whole how eloquent 
With " life of life and life's most secret joy " ! 
32 



374 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN'. 



TO A GOLDEN HEART WORN ROUND THE 
NECK.* 

Remembrancer of joys long passed away, 

Relic from which, as yet, I cannot part, 
O, hast thou power to lengthen love's short day ? 

Stronger thy chain than that which bound the heart ? 

Lili, I fly — yet still thy fetters press me 

In distant valley, or far lonely wood ; 
Still will a struggling sigh of pain confess thee 

The mistress of my soul in every mood. 

The bird may burst the silken chain which bound him, 
Flying to the green home, which fits him best ; 

But, O, he bears the prisoner's badge around him, 
Still by the piece about his neck distressed. 

He ne'er can breathe his free, wild notes again ; 

They're stifled by the pressure of his chain. 

[* Goethe says, "A little golden heart, which I had received from Lili in 
those fairy hours, still hung by the same little chain to which she had 
fastened it, love-warmed, about my neck. I seized hold of it — kissed it." 
This was the occasion of these lines. The poet noAv was separated from 
Lili, and striving to forget her in journeying about. — Ed.] 



poems. 375 



LINES 

ACCOMPANYING A BOUQUET OF WILD COLUMBINE, WHICH 
BLOOMED LATE IN THE SEASON. 

These pallid blossoms thou wilt not disdain, 

The harbingers of thy approach to me, 
"Which grew and bloomed despite the cold and rain, 

To tell of summer and futurity. 

It was not given them to tell the soul, 

And lure the nightingale by fragrant breath : 
These slender stems and roots brook no control, 
And in the garden life would find but death. 
The rock which is their cradle and their home 
Must also be their monument and tomb ; 
Yet has my floweret's life a charm more rare 
Than those admiring crowds esteem so fair, 
Self-nurtured, self-sustaining, self-approved : 
Not even by the forest trees beloved, 
As are her sisters of the Spring, she dies, — 
Nor to the guardian stars lifts up her eyes, 
But droops her graceful head upon her breast, 
Nor asks the wild bird's requiem for her rest, 
By her own heart upheld, by her own soul possessed. 

Learn of the clematis domestic love, 

Religious beauty in the lily see ; 
Learn from the rose how rapture's pulses move, 

Learn from the heliotrope fidelity. 
From autumn flowers let hope and faith be known ; 
Learn from the columbine to live alone, 



876 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

To deck whatever spot the Fates provide 
With graces worthy of the garden's pride, 
And to deserve each gift that is denied. 

These are the shades of the departed flowers, 

My lines faint shadows of some beauteous hours, 

Whereto the soul the highest thoughts have spoken, 

And brightest hopes from frequent twilight broken. 

Preserve them for my sake. In other year-. 

When life has answered to your hopes or fear-. 

When the web is well woven, and you try 

Your wings, whether as moth or butterfly, 

If, as I pray, the fairest lot be thine, 

Yet value still the faded columbine. 

But look not on her if thy earnest eye, 

Be filled by works of art or poesy ; 

Bring not the hermit where, in long array, 

Triumphs of genius gild the purple day ; 

Let her not hear the lyre's proud voice arise, 

To tell, " still lives the song though Regnor dies ; " 

Let her not hear the lute's soft-rising swell 

Declare she never lived who lived so well ; 

But from the anvil's clang, and joiner's screw, 

The busy streets where men dull crafts pursue, 

From weary cares and from tumultuous joys, 

From aimless bustle and from voiceless noise, 

If there thy plans should be, turn here thine eye, — ■ 

Open the casket of thy memory ; 

Give to thy friend the gentlest, holiest sigh. 



377 



DISSATISFACTION. 

TRANSLATED FR03I THEODORE KORNER. 
" Composed as I stood sentinel on the banks of the Elbe.' 

Fatherland ! Thou call'st the singer 

In the blissful glow of day ; 
He no more can musing linger, 

While thou dost mourn a tyrant's sway. 

Love and poesy forsaking, 
From friendship's magic circle breaking, 
The keenest pangs he could endure 
Thy peace to insure. 

Yet sometimes tears must dim his eyes, 
As, on the melodious bridge of song, 
The shadows of past joys arise, 

And in mild beauty round him throng. 
In vain, o'er life, that early beam 
Such radiance shed ; — the impetuous stream 
Of strife has seized him, onward borne, 
While left behind his loved ones mourn. 

Here in the crowd must he complain, 

Nor find a fit employ ? 
Give him poetic place again, 

Or the quick throb of warlike joy. 
The wonted inspiration give ; 
Thus languidly he cannot live ; 
Love's accents are no longer near ; 

Let him the trumpet hear. 
32* 



378 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Where is the cannon's thunder ? 
The clashing cymbals, where? 

While foreign foes our cities plunder, 

Can we not hasten there ? 
I can no longer watch this stream ; 
In prose I die ! source of flame ! 
O poesy ! for which I glow, — 
A nobler death thou should st bestow ! 



MY SEAL-RING. 

Mercury has cast aside 
The signs of intellectual pride, 
Freely offers thee the soul : 

Art thou noble to receive ? 
Canst thou give or take the whole, 

Nobly promise, and believe ? 
Then thou wholly human art, 
A spotless, radiant, ruby heart, 
And the golden chain of love 
Has bound thee to the realm above. 
If there be one small, mean doubt, 
One serpent thought that fled not out,. 
Take instead the serpent-rod ; 
Thou art neither man nor God. 
Guard thee from the powers of evil ; 
Who cannot trust, vows to the devil. 
Walk thy slow and spell-bound way ; 
Keep on thy mask, or shun the day — 
Let go my hand upon the way. 



poems. 3T9 



THE CONSOLERS. 

TRANSLATED FROM GCETHE. 

" Why wilt thou not th y griefs forget ? 
Why must thine eyes with tears be wet ? 
When all things round thee sweetly smile, 
Canst thou not, too, be glad a while ? " 

" Hither I come to weep alone ; 
The grief I feel is all mine own ; 
Dearer than smiles these tears to me ; 
Smile you — I ask no sympathy ! " 

" Repel not thus affection's voice ! 
While thou art sad, can we rejoice ? 
To friendly hearts impart thy woe ; 
Perhaps we may some healing know." 

" Too gay your hearts to feel like mine, 
Or such a sorrow to divine ; 
Nought have I lost I e'er possessed ; 
I mourn that I cannot be blessed." 

" What idle, morbid feelings these ! 
Can you not win what prize you please ? 
Youth, with a genius rich as yours, 
All bliss the world can give insures." 

" Ah, too high-placed is my desire ! 
The star to which my hopes aspire 
Shines all too far — I sigh in vain, 
Yet cannot stoop to earth again." 



380 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIX. 

" Waste not so foolishly thy prime ; 
If to the stars thou canst not climb, 
Their gentle beams thy loving eye 
Every clear night will gratify." 

" Do I not know it ? Even now 
I wait the sun's departing glow, 
That I may watch them. Meanwhile ye 
Enjoy the day — 'tis nought to me ! " 



ABSENCE OF LOVE. 

Though many at my feet have bowed, 

And asked my love through pain and pleasure, 

Fate never yet the youth has showed 
Meet to receive so great a treasure. 

Although sometimes my heart, deceived, 
Would love because it sighed to feel, 

Yet soon I changed, and sometimes grieved 
Because my fancied wound would heal. 



381 



MEDITATIONS. 

Sunday, May 12, 1833. 

The clouds are marshalling across the sky, 

Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range 

Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly, 

Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards 

Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks 

For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth 

In heightened melody the notes of praise 

They had suspended while God's voice was speaking, 

And his eye flashing down upon his world. 

I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living, 

And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells 

Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies, 

And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating 

Poetic sentiments from many a record 

Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied 

By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart 

Sends back a hollow echo to the call 

Of outward things, — and its once bright companion, 

Who erst would have been answered by a stream 

Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned, — 

Can now rouse nothing better than this echo ; 

Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents. 

Content thee, beautiful world ! and hush, still busy mind ! 

My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things 

Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long, 

Too often were they poured forth : part have sunk 

Into the desert ; part profaned and swollen 

By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned 

They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back, 

Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns. 



382 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

So when ye talk of pleasure, lonely world, 
And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move me 
To answer ye, though still your calls have power 
To jar me through, and cause dull aching here. 

Not so the voice which hailed me from the depths 
Of yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishing 
Before the sun ye greet. It touched my centre, 
The voice of the Eternal, calling me 
To feel his other worlds ; to feel that if 
I could deserve a home, I still might find it 
In other spheres, — and bade me not despair, 
Though " want of harmony " and " aching void " 
Are terms invented by the men of this, 
Which I may not forget. 

In former times 
I loved to see the lightnings flash athwart 
The stooping heavens ; I loved to hear the thunder 
Call to the seas and mountains ; for I thought 
'Tis thus man's flashing fancy doth enkindle 
The firmament of mind ; 'tis thus his eloquence 
Calls unto the soul's depths and heights ; and still 
I deified the creature, nor remembered 
The Creator in his works. 

Ah now how different ! 
The proud delight of that keen sympathy 
Is gone ; no longer riding on the wave, 
But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works. 
Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my "inventions" 
No longer interpose 'twixt me and Heaven. 

To-day, for the first time, I felt the Deity, 
And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This 
Must be thy will, — for finer, higher spirits 
Have gone through this same process, — yet I think 



poems. 383 

There was religion in that strong delight, 

Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True, 

I did not say, " He is the Lord thy God," 

But I had feeling of his essence. But 

" 'Twas pride by which the angels fell." So be it ! 

But 0, might I but see a little onward ! 

Father, I cannot be a spirit of power ; 

May I be active as a spirit of love, 

Since thou hast ta'en me from that path which Nature 

Seemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another, 

Where I may walk with thought and hope assured ; 

"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!" 

Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis, 

I too could bear that the heart " fall in ashes," 

While the freed spirit rises from beneath them, 

With heavenward-look, and Phoenix-plumes upsoaring ! 



RICHTER. 



Poet of Nature, gentlest of the wise, 

Most airy of the fanciful, most keen 
Of satirists, thy thoughts, like butterflies, 

Still near the sweetest scented flowers have been : 
With Titian's colors, thou canst sunset paint ; 

With Raphael's dignity, celestial love ; 
With Hogarth's pencil, each deceit and feint 

Of meanness and hypocrisy reprove ; 
Canst to Devotion's highest flight sublime 

Exalt the mind ; by tenderest pathos' art 

Dissolve in purifying tears the heart, 
Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime ; 



384 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

The fond illusions of the youth and maid, 
At which so many world-formed sages sneer, 

"When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed, 
Our natural religion must appear. 

All things in thee tend to one polar star ; 

Magnetic all thy influences are ; 
A labyrinth ; a flowery wilderness. 

Some in thy " slip-boxes " and honeymoons 
Complain of — want of order, I confess, 

But not of system in its highest sense. 
Who asks a guiding clew through this wide mind. 
In love of nature such will surely find, 

In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird, 
Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stray | 

Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed : 
No frost the summer's bloom shall drive away ; 

Nature's wide temple and the azure dome 

Have plan enough for the free spirit's home. 



THE THANKFUL AND THE THANKLESS. 

With equal sweetness the commissioned hours 
Shed light and dew upon both weeds and flowers. 
The weeds unthankful raise their vile heads high, 
Flaunting back insult to the gracious Bky : 
While the dear flowers, with fond humility, 
Uplift the eyelids of a starry eye 
In speechless homage, and, from grateful hearts, 
Perfume that homage all around imparts* 



poems. 385 



PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT. 

When leaves were falling thickly in the pale November day, 
A bird dropped here this feather upon her pensive way. 
Another bird has found it in the snow-chilled April day ; 
It brings to him the music of all her summer's lay. 
Thus sweet birds, though unmated, do never sing in vain ; 
The lonely notes they utter to free them from their pain, 
Caught up by the echoes, ring through the blue dome, 
And by good spirits guided pierce to some gentle home. 

The pencil moved prophetic : together now men read 
In the fair book of nature, and find the hope they need. 
The wreath woven by the river is by the seaside worn, 
And one of fate's best arrows to its due mark is borne. 



VERSES 

GIVEN TO TV. C. WITH A BLANK BOOK, MARCH, 1844. 

Thy other book to fill, more than eight years 
Have paid chance tribute of their smiles and tears ; 
Many bright strokes portray the varied scene — 
Wild sports, sweet ties the days of toil between ; 
And those related both in mind and blood, 
The wise, the true, the lovely, and the good, 
Have left their impress here ; nor such alone, 
But those chance toys that lively feelings own 
Weave their gay flourishes 'mid lines sincere, 
As 'mid the shadowy thickets bound the deer. 
33 



386 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Accept a volume where the coming time 
Will join, I hope, much reason with the rhyme, 
And that the stair his steady feet ascend 
May prove a Jacob's ladder to my friend, 
Peopled with angel-shapes of promise bright, 
And ending only in the realms of light. 

May purity be stamped upon his brow, 

Yet leave the manly footsteps free as now ; 

May generous love glow in his inmost heart, 

Truth to its utterance lend the only art ; 

While more a man, may he be more the child ; 

More thoughtful be, but the more sweet and mild ; 

May growing wisdom, mixed with sprightly cheer, 

Bless his own breast and those which hold him dear ; 

Each act be worthy of his worthiest aim, 

And love of goodness keep him free from blame, 

Without a need straight rules for life to frame. 

Good Spirit, teach him what he ought to be, 

Best to fulfil his proper destiny, 

To serve himself, his fellow-men, and thee. 

These pages then will show how Nature wild 

Accepts her Master, cherishes her child ; 

And many flowers, ere eight years more are done, 

Shall bless and blossom in the western sun. 



887 



EAGLES AND DOVES. 



A new-fledged eaglet spread his wings 

To seek for prey ; 

Then flew the huntsman's dart and cut 

The right wing's sinewy strength away. 

Headlong he falls into a myrtle grove ; 

There three days long devoured his grief, 

And writhed in pain 

Three long, long nights, three days as weary. 

At length he feels 

The all-healing power 

Of Nature's balsam. 

Forth from, the shady bush he creeps, 

And tries his wing ; but, ah ! 

The power to soar is gone ! 

He scarce can lift himself 

Along the ground 

In search of food to keep mere life awake ; 

Then rests, deep mourning, 

On a low rock by the brook ; 

He looks up to the oak tree's top, 

Far up to heaven, 

And a tear glistens in his haughty eye. 

Just then come by a pair of fondling doves, 
Playfully rustling through the grove. 
Cooing and toying, they go tripping 
Over golden sand and brook ; 
And, turning here and there, 
Their rose-tinged eyes descry 



388 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

The inly-mourning bird. 

The dove, with friendly curiosity, 

Flutters to the next bush, and looks 

With tender sweetness on the wounded king. 

" Ah, why so sad ? " he cooes ; 

" Be of good cheer," my friend ! 

Hast thou not all the means of tranquil bliss 

Around thee here ? 

Canst thou not meet with swelling breast 

The last rays of the setting sun 

On the brook's mossy brink ? 

Canst wander 'mid the dewy flowers, 

And, from the superfluous wealth 

Of the wood-bushes, pluck at will 

Wholesome and delicate food, 

And at the silvery fountain quench thy thirst ? 

O friend ! the spirit of content 

Gives all that we can know of bliss ; 

And this sweet spirit of content 

Finds every where its food." 

" O, wise one ! " said the eagle, deeper still 

Into himself retiring ; 

" O wisdom, thou speakest as a dove ! " 



TO A FRIEND, WITH HEARTSEASE. 

Content in purple lustre clad, 
Kingly serene, and golden glad ; 
No demi hues of sad contrition, 
No pallors of enforced submission ; 
Give me such content as this, 
And keep a while the rosy bliss. 



poems. 389 



ASPIRATION. 

LINES WRITTEN IN THE JOURNAL OF HER BROTHER R. F. F. 

Foreseen, forespoken, not foredone, — 
Ere the race be well begun, 
The prescient soul is at the goal, 
One little moment binds the whole ; 
Happy they themselves who call 
To risk much, and to conquer all ; 
Happy are they who many losses, 
Sore defeat or frequent crosses, 
Though these may the heart dismay, 
Cannot the sure faith betray ; 
Who in beauty bless the Giver ; 
Seek ocean on the loveliest river ; 
Or on desert island tossed, 
Seeing Heaven, think nought lost. 
May thy genius bring to thee 
Of this life experience free, * 
And the earth vine's mysterious cup, 
Sweet and bitter yield thee up. 
But should the now sparkling bowl 
Chance to slip from thy control, 
And much of the enchanted wine 
Be spilt in sand, as 'twas with mine, 
Let blessings lost bring consecration, 
Change the pledge to a libation. 
For the Power to whom we bow 
Has given his pledge, that, if not now, 
They of pure and steadfast mind, 
By faith exalted, truth refined, 
33* 



390 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Shall hear all music, loud and clear, 
"Whose first notes they ventured here. 
Then fear not thou to wind the horn 
Thougli elf and gnome thy courage scorn ; 
Ask for the castle's king and queen, 
Though rabble rout may come between, 
Beat thee, senseless, to the ground, 
In the dark beset thee round ; 
Persist to ask, and they will come. 
Seek not for rest a humbler home, 
And thou wilt see what few have seen, 
The palace home of king and queen. 



THE ONE IN ALL. 

There are who separate the eternal light 
In forms of man and woman, day and night ; 
They cannot bear that God be essence quite. 

Existence is as deep a verity : 
Without the dual, where is unity ? 
And the " I am " cannot forbear to be ; 

But from its primal nature forced to frame 

Mysteries, destinies of various name, 

Is forced to give what it has taught to claim. 

Thus love must answer to its own unrest ; 
The bad commands us to expect the best, 
And hope of its own prospects is the test. 



391 



And dost thou seek to find the one in two ? 

Only upon the old can build the new ; 

The symbol which you seek is found in you. 

The heart and mind, the wisdom and the will, 
The man and woman, must be severed still, 
And Christ must reconcile the good and ill. 

There are to whom each symbol is a mask ; 

The life of love is a mysterious task ; 

They want no answer, for they ^ould not ask. 

A single thought transfuses every form; 
The sunny day is changed into the storm, 
For light is dark, hard soft, and cold is warm. 

One presence fills and floods the whole serene ; 
Nothing can be, nothing has ever been, 
Except the one truth that creates the scene. 

Does the heart beat, — that is a seeming only ; 
You cannot be alone, though you are lonely; 
The All is neutralized in the One only. 

You ask a faith, — they are content with faith ; 
You ask to have, — but they reply, " It hath." 
There is no end, and there need be no path. 

The day wears heavily, — why, then, ignore it ; 
Peace is the soul's desire, — such thoughts restore it ; 
The truth thou art, — it needs not to implore it. 

The Presence all thy fancies supersedes, 

All that is done which thou wouldst seek in deeds, 

The wealth obliterates all seeming needs. 

Both these are true, and if they are at strife, 
The mystery bears the one name of Life, 
That, slowly spelled, will yet compose the strife. 



392 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

The men of old say, " Live twelve thousand years, 

And see the end of all that here appear-. 

And Moxen* shall absorb thy smiles and tears." 

These later men say, " Live this little day. 

Believe that human nature is the way, 

And know both Son and Father while you pray ; 

And one in two, in three, and none alone, 
Letting you know even as you are known, 
Shall make the you and me eternal parts of one." 

To me, our destinies seem flower and fruit 
Born of an ever-generating root; 
The other statement I cannot dispute. 

But say that Love and Life eternal seem, 

And if eternal ties be but a dream, 

What is the meaning of that self-same seem ? 

Your nature craves Eternity for Truth ; 

Eternity of Love is prayer of youth ; 

How, without love, would have gone forth your truth ? 

I do not think we are deceived to grow, 
But that the crudest fancy, slightest show, 
Covers some separate truth that we may know. 

In the one Truth, each separate fact is true ; 

Eternally in one I many view, 

And destinies through destiny pursue. 

This is my tendency ; but can I say 

That this my thought leads the true, only way ? 

I only know it constant leads, and I obey. 

* Buddhist terra for absorption into the divine mind. 



393 



I only know one prayer — " Give me the truth, 
Give me that colored whiteness, ancient youth, 
Complex and simple, seen in joy and ruth. 

Let me not by vain wishes bar my claim, 
Nor soothe my hunger by an empty name, 
Nor crucify the Son of man by hasty blame. 

But in the earth and fire, water and air, 
Live earnestly by turns without despair, 
Nor seek a home till home be every where ! " 



A GREETING. 

Thoughts which come at a call 
Are no better than if they came not at all ; 

Neither flower nor fruit, 

Yielding no root 

For plant, shrub, or tree. 

Thus I have not for thee 

One good word to say, 

To-day, 
Except that I prize thy gentle heart, 
Free from ambition, falsehood, or art, 

And thy good mind, 

Daily refined, 

By pure desire 
To fan the heaven-seeking fire. 
May it rise higher and higher, 

Till in thee 
Gentleness finds its dignity, 
Life flowing tranquil, pure and free, 
A mild, unbroken harmony. 



394 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 



LINES TO EDITH, ON HER BIRTHDAY. 

If the same star our fates together bind, 

Why are we thus divided, mind from mind ? 

If the same law one grief to botli impart, 

How couldst thou grieve a trusting mother's heart ? 

Our aspiration seeks a common aim ; 

Why were we tempered of such differing frame ? 

But 'tis too late to turn this wrong to right ; 

Too cold, too damp, too deep, has fallen the night. 

And yet, the angel of my life replies, 
Upon that night a morning star shall rise, 
Fairer than that which ruled thy temporal birth, 
Undimmed by vapors of the dreamy earth. 

It says, that, where a heart thy claim denies, 
Genius shall read its secret ere it flies ; 
The earthly form may vanish from thy side, 
Pure love will make thee still the spirit's bride. 

And thou, ungentle, yet much loving child, 
Whose heart still shows the " untamed haggard wild,' 
A heart which justly makes the highest claim, 
Too easily is checked by transient blame. 

Ere such an orb can ascertain its sphere, 
The ordeal must be various and severe ; 
My prayer attend thee, though the feet may fly ; 
I hear thy music in the silent sky. 



poems. 395 



LINES 



WRITTEN IN HER BROTHER R. F. F. S JOURNAL. 

" Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man 
is peace." — Psalms xxxvii. 37. 

The man of heart and words sincere, 

Who truth and justice follows still, 
Pursues his way with conscience clear, 

Unharmed by earthly care and ill. 
His promises he never breaks, 

But sacredly to each adheres ; 
Honor's straight path he ne'er forsakes, 

Though danger in the way appears. 
He never boasts, will ne'er deceive, 

For vanity nor yet for gain ; 
All that he says you may believe ; 

For worlds he would not conscience stain. 
If he desires what others do, 

And they deserve it more than he, 
He gives to them what is their due, 

Happy in Ins humility. 
Not to his friends alone he's kind, 

But his foes too with candor sees ; 
Not to their good intentions blind, 

Though hopeless their dislike t' appease. 
His eyes are clear, his hands are pure ; 

To God it is his constant prayer 
That, be he rich or be he poor, 

He never may wrong actions dare. 



396 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

If rich, he to the suffering gives 

All he can spare, and thinks it just, 
That, since he by God's bounty lives, 

He should as steward hold his trust. 
If poor, he envies not ; he knows 

How covetousness corrupts the heart, 
Whatever a just God bestows 

Receiving as his proper part. 
O Father, such a man I'd be ; 

Like him would act, like him would pray : 
Lead me in truth and purity 

To win thy peace and see thy day. 



ON A PICTURE REPRESENTING THE DESCENT 
FROM THE CROSS. 

BY RAPHAEL. 

Virgin Mother, Mary mild ! 
It was thine to see the child, 

Gift of the Messiah dove, 

Pure blossom of ideal love, 
Break, upon the " guilty cross," 

The seeming promise of his life ; 
Of faith, of hope, of love, a loss, 

Deepened all thy bosom's strife, 
Brow down-bent, and heart-strings torn, 
Fainting, by frail arms upborne. 



397 



All those startled figures show, 

That they did not apprehend 
The thought of Him who there lies low, 

On whom those sorrowing eyes they bend. 
They do not feel this holiest hour ; 
Their hearts soar not to read the power, 

Which this deepest of distress 

Alone could give to save and bless. 

Soul of that fair, now ruined form, 
Thou who hadst force to bide the storm, 

Must again descend to tell 

Of thy life the hidden spell ; 
Though their hearts within them burned, 
The flame rose not till he returned. 

Just so all our dead ones lie ; 

Just so call our thoughts on high ; 

Thus we linger on the earth, 

And dully miss death's heavenly birth. 



THE CAPTUEED WILD HORSE.* 

On the boundless plain careering, 
By an unseen compass steering, 
Wildly flying, reappearing, — 

* This horse, Konick, was caught early, marked, and then let loose 
again, for a time, among the herd. He still retains a wild freedom and 
beauty in his movements. 

34 



398 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIX. 

"With untamed fire their broad eyes glowing, 
In every step a grand pride showing, 
Of no servile moment knowing, — 

Happy as the trees and flowers, 
In their instinct cradled hours, 
Happier in fuller powers, — 

See the wild herd nobly ranging, 
Nature varying, not changing, 
Lawful in their lawdess ranging. 

But hark ! what boding crouches near ? 
On the horizon now appear 
Centaur-forms of force and fear. 

On their enslaved brethren borne, 
With bit and w r hip of tyrant scorn, 
To make new captives, as forlorn. 

Wildly snort the astonished throng, 

Stamp, and wheel, and fly along, 

Those centaur-powers they know are strong. 

But the lasso, skilful cast, 
Holds one only captive fast, 
Youngest, weakest — left the last. 

How thou trembledst then, Konick ! 
Thy full breath came short and thick, 
Thy heart to bursting beat so quick ; 

Thy strange brethren peering round, 
By those tyrants held and bound, 
Tyrants fell, — whom falls confound! 



POEMS. 

With rage and pity fill thy heart ; 
Death shall be thy chosen part, 
Ere such slavery tame thy heart. 

But strange, unexpected joy ! 

They seem to mean thee no annoy — 

Gallop off both man and boy. 

Let the wild horse freely go ! 
Almost he shames it should be so ; 
So lightly prized himself to know. 

All deception 'tis, O steed! 
Ne'er again upon the mead 
Shalt thou a free wild horse feed. 

The mark of man doth blot thy side, 
The fear of man doth dull thy pride, 
Thy master soon shall on thee ride. 

Thy brethren of the free plain, 

Joyful speeding back again, 

With proud career and flowing mane, 

Find thee branded, left alone, 

And their hearts are turned to stone — 

They keep thee in their midst alone. 

Cruel the intervening years, 
Seeming freedom stained by fears, 
Till the captor reappears ; 

Finds thee with thy broken pride, 
Amid thy peers still left aside, 
Unbeloved and unallied; 



400 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

Finds thee ready for thy fate ; 
For joy and hope 'tis all too late — 
Thou'rt wedded to thy sad estate. 



Wouldst have the princely spirit bowed ? 
Whisper only, speak not loud, 
Mark and leave him in the crowd. 

Thou need'st not spies nor jailers have ; 
The free will serve thee like the slave, 
Coward shrinking from the brave. 

And thy cohorts, when they come 
To take the weary captive home, 
Need only beat the retreating drum. 



EPILOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF ESSEX. 

SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF THE QUEEN. TRANS- 
LATED FROM GCETnE. 

No Essex here! — unblest — they give no sign. 
And shall such live, while earth's best nobleness 
Departs and leaves her barren ? Now too late 
Weakness and cunning both are exorcised 
How could I trust thee whom I knew so well ? 



POEMS. 401 

Am I not like the fool of fable ? He 
Who in his bosom warmed the frozen viper, 
And fancied man might hope for gratitude 
From the betrayer's seed ? Away ! begone ! 
No breath, no sound shall here insult my anguish. 
Essex is dumb, and they shall all be so ; 
No human presence shall control my mood. 
Begone, I say ! The queen would be alone ! 

(TJiey all go out.) 

Alone and still ! This day the cup of woe 
Is full ; and while I drain its bitter dregs, 
Calm, queenlike, stern, I would review the past. 
Well it becomes the favorite of fortune, 
The royal arbitress of others' weal, 
The world's desire, and England's deity, 
Self-poised, self-governed, clear and firm to gaze 
Where others close their aching eyes, to dream. 

Who feels imperial courage glow within 
Fears not the mines which lie beneath his throne ; 
Bold he ascends, though knowing well his peril — 
Majestical and fearless holds the sceptre. 
The golden circlet of enormous weight 
He wears with brow serene and smiling air, 
As though a myrtle chaplet graced his temples. 
And thus didst thou. The far removed thy power 
Attracted and subjected to thy will, 
The hates and fears which oft beset thy way 
Were seen, were met, and conquered by thy courage. 
Thy tyrant father's wrath, thy mother's hopeless fate, 
Thy sister's harshness, — all were cast behind ; 
And to a soul like thine, bonds and harsh usage 
Taught fortitude, prudence, and self-command, 
To act, or to endure. Fate did the rest. 
34* 



402 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

One brilliant day thou heard'st, " Long live the Queen ! ' 
A queen thou wert ; and in the heart's despite, 
Despite the foes without, within, who ceaseless 
Have threatened war and death, — a queen thou art, 
And wilt be, while a spark of life remains. 
But this last deadly blow — I feel it here ! 
Yet the low, prying world shall ne'er perceive it 
" Actress " they call me, — 'tis a queen's vocation ! 
The people stare and whisper — what would they 
But acting, to amuse them ? Is deceit 
Unknown, except in regal palaces ? 
The child at play already is an actor. 

Still to thyself, let weal or woe betide, 

Elizabeth ! be true and steadfast ever ! 

Maintain thy fixed reserve : 'tis just ; what heart 

Can sympathize with a queen's agony ? 

The false, false world, — it wooes me for my treasures, 

My favors, and the place my smile confers ; 

And if for love I offer mutual love, 

My minion, not content, must have the crown. 

'Twas thus with Essex ; yet to thee, heart ! 

I dare to say it, thy all died with him ! 

Man must experience — be he who he may — 
Of bliss a last, irrevocable day. 
Each owns this true, but cannot bear to live 
And feel the last has come, the last has gone ; 
That never eye again in earnest tenderness 
Shall turn to him, — no heart shall thickly beat 
When his footfall is heard, — no speaking blush 
Tell the soul's wild delight at meeting, — never 
Rapture in presence, hope in absence more, 
Be his, — no sun of love illume his landscape! 
Yet thus it is with me. Throughout this heart 



POEMS. 403 

Deep night, without a star ! "What all the host 

To me, — my Essex fallen from the heavens ! 

To me he was the centre of the world, 

The ornament of time. "Wood, lawn, or hall, 

The busy mart, the verdant solitude, 

To me were but the fame of one bright image ; 

That face is dust, — those lustrous eyes are closed, 

And the frame mocks me with its empty centre. 

How nobly free, how gallantly he bore him, 

The charms of youth combined with manhood's vigor ! 

How sage his counsel, and how warm his valor, — 

The glowing fire and the aspiring flame ! 

Even in his presumption he was kingly ! 

But ah ! does memory cheat me ? "What was all, 

Since Truth was wanting, and the man I loved 

Could court his death to vent his anger on me, 

And I must punish him, or live degraded. 

I chose the first ; but in his death I died. 

Land, sea, church, people, throne, — all, all are nought, 

I live a living death, and call it royalty. 

Yet, wretched ruler o'er these empty gauds, 

A part remains to play, and I will play it. 

A purple mantle hides my empty heart, 

The kingly crown adorns my aching brow, 

And pride conceals my anguish from the world. 

But in the still and ghostly midnight hour, 

From each intruding eye and ear set free, 

I still may shed the bitter, hopeless tear, 

Nor fear the babbling of the earless walls. 

I to myself may say, " I die ! I die ! 

Elizabeth, unfriended and alone, 

So die as thou hast lived, — alone, but queenlike ! " 



404 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 



HYMN WRITTEN FOR A SUNDAY SCHOOL. 

" And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us ? 
Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. 

" And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not 
that I must be about my Father's business ? " — Luke ii. 48, 49. 

I. 

Thus early was Christ's course begun, 

Thus radiant dawned celestial day ; 
And those who such a race would run, 

As early should be on the way. 

II. 
His Father's business was his care. 

Yet in man's favor still he grew : 
O, might we learn, by thought and prayer, 

Like him a work of love to do ! 

III. 
Wisdom and virtue still he sought, 

Nor ignorant nor vile despised : 
True was each action, pure each thought, 

And each pure hope he realized. 

IV. 
The empires of this world, in vain, 

Offered their sceptres to his hand ; 
Fearless he trod the stormy main, 

Fearless 'mid throngs of foes could stand. 

V. 
Yet with his courage and his power 

Combined such sweetness and such love, 



405 



He could revere the simplest flower, 
The vilest sinners firm reprove. 

VI. 

For all mankind he came, nor yet 
An infant's visit would deny ; 

Nor friend nor mother did forget 
In his last hour of agony. 

YII. 
O, children, ask him to impart 

That spirit clear and temper mild, 
Which made the mother in her heart 

Keep all the sayings of her child. 

VIII. 
Bless him who said, of such as you 

His Father's kingdom is, and still, 
His yoke to bear, his work to do, 

Study his life to learn his will. 



DESERTION. 

TRANSLATION OP ONE OF GARCILASO'S ECLOGUES. 

With my lamenting touched, the lofty trees 

Incline their graceful heads without a breeze ; 

The listening birds forego their joyous song, 

For soft and mournful strains, which echoes faint prolong. 

Lions and bears resign the charms of sleep 
To hear my lonely plaint, and see me weep ; 



406 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

At my approaching death e'en stones relent. 

Yet though yourself the fatal cause you know, 
Not once on me those lovely eyes are bent : 

Flow freely, tears ! 'tis meet that you should flow ! 

Although for my relief thou wilt not come, 

Leave not the place where once thou loved'st to roam ! 

Here thou mayst rove secure from meeting me ; 

"With a torn heart forever hence I flee. 

Come, if 'twere this alone thy footsteps stayed, 

Here the soft meadow, the delightful shade, 

The roses now in flower, the waters clear, 

Invite thee to the valley once so dear. 

Come, and bring with thee thy late-chosen love ; 

Each object shall thy perfidy reprove ; 

Since to another thou hast given thy heart, 

From this sweet scene forever I depart. 

And soon kind Death my sorrows shall remove, 

The bitter ending of my faithful love. 



SONG WRITTEN FOR A MAY DAY FESTIVAL. 

TO BE SUNG TO THE TUNE OF "THE BONNY BOAT." 
I. 

O, blessed be this sweet May day, 

The fairest of the year ; 
The birds are heard from every spray, 

And the blue sky shines so clear ! 
White blossoms deck the apple tree, 

Blue violets the plain ; 



POEMS. 407 

Their fragrance tells the wand'ring bee 

That Spring is come again. 
"We'll cull the blossoms from the bough 

"Where robins gayly sing, 
"We'll wreathe them for our queen's pure brow, 

We'll wreathe them for our king. 



The winter wind is bleak and sad, 

And chill the winter rain ; 
But these May gales blow warm and glad, 

And charm the heart from pain. 
The sick, the poor rejoice once more, 

Pale cheeks resume their glow, 
And those who thought their day was o'er 

New life to May suns owe. 
And we, in youth and health so gay, 

Sheltered by love and care, 
How should we joy in blooming May, 

And bless its balmy air ! 



We are the children of the Spring ; 

Our home is always green ; 
Green be the garland of our king, 

The livery of our queen. 
The gardener's care the seed has strown, 

To deck our home with flowers ; 
Our Father's love from high has shone, 

And sent the needed showers. 
Barren indeed the plants must be, 

If they should not disclose, 
Tended and cherished with such toil, 

The lily and the rose. 



408 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

IV. 

Meanwhile through the wild wood we'll rove, 

Where earliest flowerets grow, 
And greet each simple bud with love, 

Which tells us what to do — 
That, though untended, we may bloom 

And smile on all around, 
And one day rise from earth's low tomb, 

To live where light is found. 
A modest violet be our queen, 

Still fragrant, though alone, 
Our king a laurel — evergreen — 

To which no blight is known. 



So let us bless the sweet May day, 

And pray the coming year 
May see us walk the upward way — 

Minds earnest, conscience clear ; 
That fruit Spring's amplest hope may crown, 

And every winged day 
Make to our hearts more dear, more known, 

The hope, the peace of May ! 
So cull the blossoms from the bough 

Where birds so gayly sing ; 
We'll wreathe them for our queen's pure brow, 

We'll wreathe them for our king. 



409 



CARADORI SINGING. 

Let not the heart o'erladeu hither fly, 
Hoping in tears to vent its misery : 
She soars not like the lark with eager cry, 
Not hers the robin's notes of love and joy ; 
Nor, like the nightingale's love-descant, tells 
Her song the truths of the heart's hidden wells. 
Come, if thy soul be tranquil, and her voice 
Shall bid the tranquil lake laugh and rejoice ; 
Shall lightly warble, flutter, hover, dance, 
And charm thee by its sportive elegance. 
A finished style the highest art has given, 
And a fine organ she received from heaven : 
But genius casts not here one living ray ; 
Thou shalt approve, admire, not weep, to-day. 



LINES 



IN ANSWER TO STANZAS CONTAINING SEVERAL PASSAGES 
OF DISTINGUISHED BEAUTY, ADDRESSED TO ME BY . 

As by the wayside the worn traveller lies, 
And finds no pillow for his aching brow, 
Except the pack beneath whose weight he dies, — 

If loving breezes from the far west blow, 
Laden -with perfume from those blissful bowers 
Where gentle youth and hope once gilded all his hours, 
As fans that loving breeze, tears spring again, 
And cool the fever of his wearied brain. 
35 



410 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN*. 

Even so to me the soft romantic dream 

Of one who still may sit at fancy's feet, 
Where love and beauty yet are all the theme, 
Where spheral concords find an echo meet 
To the ideal my vexed spirit turns, 
But often for communion vainly burns. 
Blest is that hour when breeze of poesy 
From far the ancient fragrance wafts to me ; 
This time thrice blest, because it came unsought, 
" Sweet suppliance," and dear, because unbouyht. 



INFLUENCE OF THE OUTWARD. 

The sun, the moon, the waters, and the air, 
The hopeful, holy, terrible, and fair ; 
Flower-alphabets, love-letters from the wave, 
All mysteries which flutter, blow, skim, lave ; 
All that is ever-speaking, never spoken, 
Spells that are ever breaking, never broken, — 
Have played upon my soul, and every string 
Confessed the touch which once could make it sing 
Triumphal notes; and still, though changed the tone, 
Though damp and jarring fall the lyre hath known. 
It would, if fitly played, and all its deep notes wove 
Into one tissue of belief and love, 
Yield melodies for angel-audience meet, 
And paeans fit creative power to greet. 

O, injured lyre! thy golden frame is marred; 
No garlands deck thee ; no libations poured 
Tell to the earth the triumphs of thy song ; 
No princely halls echo thy strains along ; 



POEMS. 411 

But still the strings are there ; and if at last they break, 

Even in death some melody will make. 

Mightst thou once more be strung, might yet the power 

be given, 
To tell in numbers all thou hast of heaven ! 
But no ! thy fragments scattered by the way, 
To children given, help the childish play. 
Be it thy pride to feel thy latest sigh 
Could not forget the law of harmony, 
Thou couldst not live for bliss — but thou for truth 

couldst die ! 



TO MISS R. B * 

A graceful fiction of the olden day 

Tells us that, by a mighty master's sway, 

A city rose, obedient to the lyre ; 

That his sweet strains rude matter could inspire 

"With zeal his harmony to emulate ; 

Thus to the spot where that sweet singer sat 

The rocks advanced, in symmetry combined, 

To form the palace and the temple joined. 

The arts are sisters, and united all, 

So architecture answered music's call. 

In. modern days such feats no more we see, 
And matter dares 'gainst mind a rebel be ; 
The faith is gone such miracles which wrought ; 
Masons and carpenters must aid our thought ; 
The harp and voice in vain would try their skill 
To raise a city on our hard-bound soil ; 

[* A sweet and beautiful singer. — Ed.] 



412 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

The rocks have lain asleep so many a year, 
Nothing but gunpowder will make them stir ; 
I doubt if even for your voice would come 
The smallest pebble from its sandy home ; 
But, if the minstrel can no more create, 
For building, if he live a little late, 
He wields a power of not inferior kind, 
No longer rules o'er matter, but o'er mind. 
And when a voice like yours its song doth pour, 
If it can raise palace and tower no more, 
It can each ugly fabric melt away, 
Bidding the fancy fairer scenes portray ; 
Its soft and brilliant tones our thoughts can wing 
To climes whence they congenial magic bring ; 
As by the sweet Italian voice is given 
Dream of the radiance of Italia's heaven. 

Whether in round, low notes the strain may swell. 
As if some tale of woe or wrong to tell, 
Or swift and light the upward notes are heard, 
With the full carolling clearness of a bird, 
The stream of sound untroubled flows along, 
And no obstruction mars your finished song. 
No stifled notes, no gasp, no ill-taught graces, 
No vulgar trills in worst-selected places, 
None of the miseries which haunt a land 
Where all would learn what so few understand, 
Afflict in hearing you ; in you we find 
The finest organ, and informed by mind. 

And as, in that same fable I have quoted, 
It is of that town-making artist noted, 
That, where he leaned his lyre upon a stone, 
The stone stole somewhat of that lovely tone, 



413 



And afterwards each untaught passer-by, 

By touching it, could rouse the melody, — 

Even thus a heart once by your music thrilled, 

An ear which your delightful voice has filled, 

In memory a talisman have found 

To repel many a dull, harsh, after-sound ; 

And, as the music lingered in the stone, 

After the minstrel and the lyre were gone, 

Even so my thoughts and wishes, turned to sweetness, 

Lend to the heavy hours unwonted fleetness ; 

And common objects, calling up the tone, 

I caught from you, wake beauty not their own. 



SISTRUM.* 



Triuxe, shaping, restless power, 
Life-flow from life's natal hour, 
No music chords are in thy sound ; 
By some thou'rt but a rattle found ; 
Yet, without thy ceaseless motion, 
To ice would turn their dead devotion. 
Life-flow of my natal hour, 
I will not weary of thy power, 
Till in the changes of thy sound 
A chord's three parts distinct are found. 
I will faithful move with thee, 
God-ordered, self-fed energy, 
Nature in eternity. 

[* A musical instrument of the ancients, employed by the Egyptians in 
the worship of Isis. It was to be kept in constant motion, and, according 
to Plutarch, was intended to indicate the necessity of constant motion on 
the part of men — the need of being often shaken by fierce trials and agita- 
tions when they become morbid or indolent. — Ed.] 

85* 



414 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 



IMPERFECT THOUGHTS. 

The peasant boy watches the midnight sky ; 

He sees the meteor dropping from on high ; 

He hastens whither the bright guest hath flown, 

And finds — a mass of black, unseemly stone. 

Disdainful, disappointed, turns he home. 

If a philosopher that way had come, 

He would have seized the waif with great delight, 

And honored it as an aerolite. 

But truly it would need a Cuvier's mind 

High meaning in my meteors to find. 

Well, in my museum there is room to spare — 

I'll let them stay till Cuvier goes there ! 



SADNESS. 



Lonelt lady, tell me why 

That abandonment of eye ? 

Life is full, and nature fair ; 

How canst thou dream of dull despair ? 

Life is full and nature fair ; 
A^dull folly is despair; 
But the heart lies still and tame 
For want of what it may not claim. 

Lady, chide that foolish heart, 
And bid it act a nobler part ; 
The love thou couldst be bid resign 
Never could be worthy thine. 



415 



O, I know, and knew it well, 

How unworthy was the spell 

In its silken band to bind 

My heaven-born, heaven-seeking mind. 

Thou lonely moon, thou knowest well 
Why I yielded to the spell ; 
Just so thou didst condescend 
Thy own precept to offend. 

When wondering nymphs thee questioned why 

That abandonment of eye, 

Crying, " Dian,* heaven's queen, 

What can that trembling eyelash mean ? " 

Waning, over ocean's breast, 
Thou didst strive to hide unrest 
From the question of their eyes, 
Unseeing in their dull surprise. 

Thy Endymion had grown old ; 
Thy only love was marred with cold; 
No longer to the secret cave 
Thy ray could pierce, and answer have. 

No more to thee, no more, no more, 
Till thy circling life be o'er, 
A mutual heart shall be a home, 
Of weary wishes happy tomb. 



[* Diana is represented as driving the chariot of the moon, as Apollo 
that of the sun. Mythology states that while enlightening the earth as 
Luna, the moon, she beheld the hunter Endymion sleeping in the forest. 
"With her rays she kissed the lips of the hunter— a favor she had never 
before bestowed on god or man. — Ed.] 



416 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

No more, no more — O words which sever 
Hearts from their hopes, to part forever ! 
They can believe it never ! 



LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.* 

Some names there are at sight of which will rise 

Visions of triumph to the dullest eyes ; 

They breathe of garlands from a grateful race, 

They tell of victory o'er all that's base ; 

To write them eagles might their plumage give, 

And granite rocks should yield, that they may live. 

Others there are at sight of which will rise 

Visions of beauty to all loving eyes, 

Of radiant sweetness, or of gentle grace, 

The poesy of manner or of face, 

Spell of intense, if not of widest power ; 

The strong the ages rule ; the fair, the hour. 

And there are names at sight of which will rise 

Visions of goodness to the mourner's eyes ; 

They tell of generosity untired, 

Which gave to others all the heart desired ; 

Of Virtue's uncomplaining sacrifice, 

And holy hopes which sought their native skies. 

If I could hope that at my name would rise 
Visions like these, before those gentle eyes, 
How gladly would I place it in the shrine 

[* These lines were written without her signature attached. — Ed.] 



41T 



Where many honored names are linked with thine, 
And know, if lone and far my pathway lies, 
My name is living 'mid the good and wise. 

It must not be, for now I know too well 
That those to whom my name has aught to tell 
O'er baffled efforts would lament or blame. 
Who heeds a breaking reed ? — a sinking flame ? 
Best wishes and kind thoughts I give to thee, 
But mine, indeed, an empty name would be. 



TO S. C. 



Our friend has likened thee to the sweet fern, 
Which with no flower salutes the ardent day, 
Yet, as the wanderer pursues his way, 

While the dews fall, and hues*>f sunset burn, 

Sheds forth a fragrance from the deep green brake, 
Sweeter than the rich scents that gardens make. 

Like thee, the fern loves well the hallowed shade 
Of trees that quietly aspire on high ; 

Amid guch groves was consecration made 
Of vestals, tranquil as the vestal sky. 

Like thee, the fern doth better love to hide 
Beneath the leaf the treasure of its seed, 

Than to display it, with an idle pride, 
To any but the careful gatherer's heed — 

A treasure known to philosophic ken, 

Garnered in nature, asking nought of men ; 
Nay, can invisible the wearer make, 
Who would unnoted in life's game partake. 



418 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

But I will liken thee to the sweet bay, 

Which I first learned, in the Cohasset woods, 

To name upon a sweet and pensive day 
Passed in their ministering solitudes. 

I had grown weary of the anthem high 

Of the full waves, cheering the patient rocks ; 
I had grown weary of the sob and sigh 

Of the dull ebb, after emotion's shocks ; 
My eye was weary of the glittering blue 

And the unbroken horizontal line ; 
My mind was weary, tempted to pursue 

The circling waters in their wide design. 
Like snowy sea-gulls stooping to the wave, 

Or rising buoyant to the utmost air, 
To dart, to circle, airily to lave, 

Or wave-like float in foam-born lightness fair : 
I had swept onward like the wave so full, 
Like sea weed now left on the shore so dull. 

I turned my steps to the retreating hills, 
Rejected sand from that great haughty sea, 

Watered by nature with consoling rills, 

And gradual dressed with grass, and shrub, and tree ; 

They seemed to welcome me with timid smile, 

That said, " We'd like to soothe you for a while ; 
You seem to have been treated by the 
In the same way that long ago were we." 

They had not much to boast, those gentle slopes, 
For the wild gambols of the sea-sent breeze 

Had mocked at many of their quiet hopes, 

And bent and dwarfed their fondly cherished trees ; 

Yet even in those marks of by-past wind, 

There was a tender stilling for my mind. 



419 



Hiding within a small but thick-set wood, 

I soon forgot the haughty, chiding flood. 

The sheep bell's tinkle on the drowsy ear, 

With the bird's chirp, so short, and light, and clear, 

Composed a melody that filled my heart 

With flower-like growths of childish, artless art, 

And of the tender, tranquil life I lived apart. 

It was an hour of pure tranquillity, 
Like to the autumn sweetness of thine eye, 
Which pries not, seeks not, and yet clearly sees — 
Which wooes not, beams not, yet is sure to please. 
Hours passed, and sunset called me to return 
Where its sad glories on the cold wave burn. 

Rising from my kind bed of thick-strewn leaves, 
A fragrance the astonished sense receives, 
Ambrosial, searching, yet retiring, mild : 
Of that soft scene the soul was it? or child? 
'Twas the sweet bay I had unwitting spread, 
A pillow for my senseless, throbbing head, 
And which, like all the sweetest things, demands, 
To make it speak, the grasp of alien hands. 

All that this scene did in that moment tell, 

I since have read, wise, mild friend ! in thee. 

Pardon the rude grasp, its sincerity, 
And feel that I, at least, have known thee well. 
Grudge not the green leaves ravished from thy stem, 

Their music, should I live, muse-like to tell ; 
Thou wilt, in fresher green forgetting them, 

Send others to console me for farewell. 
Thou wilt see why the dim word of regret 
Was made the one to rhyme with Margaret. 



420 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

But to the Oriental parent tongue, 

Sunrise of Nature, does my chosen name, 
My name of Leila, as a spell, belong, 

Teaching the meaning of each temporal blame ; 
I chose it by the sound, not knowing why ; 

Eut since I know that Leila stands for night, 
I own that sable mantle of the sky, 

Through which pierce, gem-like, points of distant light ; 
As sorrow truths, so night brings out her stars ; 

O, add not, bard ! that those stars shine too late ! 
While earth grows green amid the ocean jars, 

And trumpets yet shall wake the slain of her long 
century-wars. 



LINES WRITTEN IN BOSTON ON A BEAUTI- 
FUL AUTUMNAL DAY. 

As late we lived upon the gentle stream, 

Nature refused us smiles and kindly airs ; 
The sun but rarely deigned a pallid gleam ; 

Then clouds came instantly, like glooms and tears, 
Upon the timid flickerings of our hope ; 

The moon, amid the thick mists of the night, 
Had scarcely power her gentle eye to ope, 

And climb the heavenly steeps. A moment bright 
Shimmered the hectic leaves, then rudely torn 

By winds that sobbed to see the wreck they made, 
Upon the amber waves were thickly borne 

Adonis' gardens for the realms of shade, 
While thoughts of beauty past all wish for livelier life forbade. 



POEMS. 421 

So sped the many days of tranquil life, 

And on the stream, or by the mill's bright fire, 
The wailing winds had told of distant strife, 
Still bade us for the moment yield desire 
To think, to feel, the moment gave, — we needed not aspire ! 

Returning here, no harvest fields I see, 

Nor russet beauty of the thoughtful year. 
Where is the honey of the city bee ? 

No leaves upon this muddy stream appear. 
The housekeeper is getting in his coal, 

The lecturer his showiest thoughts is selling ; 
I hear of Major Somebody, the Pole, 

And Mr. Lyell, how rocks grow, is telling ; 
But not a breath of thoughtful poesy 

Does any social impulse bring to me ; 
But many cares, sad thoughts of men unwise, 

Base yieldings, and unransomed destinies, 

Hopes uninstructed, and unhallowed ties. 

Yet here the sun smiles sweet as heavenly love, 

Upon the eve of earthly severance ; 
The youthfulest tender clouds float all above, 

And earth lies steeped in odors like a trance. 
The moon looks down as though she ne'er could leave us, 
And these last trembling leaves sigh, " Must they too 
deceive us ? " 
Surely some life is living in this light, 
Truer than mine some soul received last night ; 
I cannot freely greet this beauteous day, 
But does not thy heart swell to hail the genial ray ? 
I would not nature these last loving words in vain should say. 
36 



422 LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 

TO E. C. 

with Herbert's poems. 

Dost thou remember that fair summer's day, 

As, sick and weary on my couch I lay, 

Thou broughtst this little book, and didst diffuse 

O'er my dark hour the light of Herbert's muse ? 

The " Elixir," and " True Hymn," were then thy choice, 

And the high strain gained sweetness from thy voice. 

The book, before that day to me unknown, 

I took to heart at once, and made my own. 

Three winters and three summers since have passed, 
And bitter griefs the hearts of both have tried ; 

Thy sympathy is lost to me at last ; 

A dearer love has torn thee from my side ; 

Scenes, friends, to me unknown, now claim thy care ; 

No more thy joys or griefs I soothe or share ; 

No more thy lovely form my eye shall bless ; 

The gentle smile, the timid, mute caress, 
No more shall break the icy chains which may my heart 
oppress. 

New duties claim us both ; indulgent Heaven 
Ten years of mutual love to us had given ; 
The plants from early youth together grew, 
Together all youth's sun and tempests knew. 
At age mature arrived, thou, graceful vine ! 
Didst seek a sheltering tree round which to twine ; 
While I, like northern fir, must be content 
To clasp the rock which gave my youth its scanty nour- 
ishment. 



poems. 423 

The world for which we sighed is with us now; 
No longer musing on the why or how, 
What really does exist we now must meet; 
Life's dusty highway is beneath our feet ; 
Life's fainting pilgrims claim our ministry, 
And the whole scene speaks stern reality. 

Say, in the tasks reality has brought, 

Keepst thou the plan that pleased thy childish thought ? 

Does Herbert's " Hymn " in thy heart echo now ? 

Herbert's " Elixir " in thy bosom glow ? 

In Herbert's " Temper " dost thou strive to be ? 

Does Herbert's " Pearl " seem the true pearl to thee ? 

O, if 'tis so, I have not prayed in vain ! — 

My friend, my sister, we shall meet again. 

I dare not say that / am always true 

To the vocation which my young thought knew ; 

But the Great Spirit blesses me, and still, 

Though clouds may darken o'er the heavenly will, 

Upon the hidden sun my thoughts can rest, 

And oft the rainbow glitters in the west. 

This earth no more seems all the world to me ; 

Before me shines a far eternity, 

Whose laws to me, when thought is calmly poised, 

Suffice, as they to angels have sufficed. 

I know the thunder has not ceased to roll, 

Not all the iron yet has pierced my soul ; 

I know no earthly honors wait for me, 

No earthly love my heart shall satisfy. 

Tears, of these eyes still oft the guests must be, 

Long hours be borne, of chilling apathy ; 

Still harder teachings come to make me wise, 

And life's best blood must seal the sacrifice. 



424 



LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN. 



But He who still seems nearer and more bright, 
Nor from my seeking eye withholds his light, 
"Will not forsake me, for his pledge is given ; 
Virtue shall teach the soul its way to heaven. 

O, pray for me, and I for thee will pray ; 
And more than loving words we used to say 
Shall this avail. But little more we meet 
In life — ah, how the years begin to fleet ! 
Ask — pray that I may seek beauty and truth ; 
In their high sphere we shall renew our youth. 
On wings of steadfast faith there mayst thou soar, 
And my soul fret at barriers no more ! 







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